
Class 5~V 

Book ,S %2l 



SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



#7 J 



MENTAL HYGIENE. 



MEITAL HYGIENE; 

OR, 

AN EXAMINATION 

OF THE 

INTELLECT AND PASSIONS 

DESIGNED TO SHOW 

HOW THEY AFFECT AND ARE AFFECTED BY 
THE BODILY FUNCTIONS, 

AND THEIR 

INFLUENCE ON HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 



BY 

WILLIAM SWEETSER, M. D., 

PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN BOWDOIN, CASTLETON. 

AND GENEVA MEDICAL COLLEGES, AND FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN 

ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



SECOND EDITION, RE-WRITTEN AND ENLARGED. / 

fi a \ ^ 

NEW-YOKK : 
GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY. 

. 1850. 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850 t 

Bv GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of New-York. 



.ions F. Trow, Printer, 

40, :>i fc :>.\ Aim-si. 



PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND EDITION 



The previous edition of the following work having been 
fcr some years exhausted, and frequent inquiries for it 
having been made of the author, he has taken advantage 
of his earliest leisure to prepare, a second edition. In doing 
this he has re-written nearly the whole volume, and added 
to it a large amount of new matter. The division of the 
chapters is left the same as in the previous edition, — 
though each has been more or less enlarged — and the 
general arrangement of the subjects has not been essen- 
tially altered. That this edition will be found improved 
by the labors bestowed upon it, is a hope with which the 
author ventures to natter himself, but on this point it is 
for others to decide. 

Fort Washington, City of New- York, 
August 6th, 1850. 



INTRODUCTION 



Whatever speculative views we may entertain in regard 
to mind — however distinct in its nature we may deem it to 
be from matter — of the fact that it is essentially involved 
with our organic structure, and that "between the two a 
reciprocation of influence is constantly and necessarily 
maintained, we are sufficiently assured. Of the mental con- 
stitution and its laws, we have not the faintest knowledge 
except as they reveal themselves through the medium of 
certain material conformations. Wherever these are dis- 
covered we are convinced that mind is, or has been, con- 
joined with them. Without such arrangements of matter, 
its astonishing phenomena have never been disclosed to us. 

The mutual relationship and constant interchange of 
action subsisting between our mental and corporeal na- 
tures, can scarce have escaped even the most careless 
observation. Let the functions of either be disturbed, and 
more or less disorder will straightway be reflected to those of 
the other,. The hardiest frame must suffer under the agita- 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

tions and afflictions of the mind ; and the firmest mind can- 
not long remain unharmed amid the infirmities and suffer- 
ings of the body. 

Mind and body ought always to be studied together, 
and under their mutual and necessary relationships, other- 
wise our views of the animal constitution will be limited 
and erroneous. It has been said, that the less we know of 
the corporeal, the more we fancy we know of the spiritual 
world ; and the contrary is doubtless equally true. He 
whose researches are altogether physical, or altogether 
metaphysical, is very liable to become exclusively material, 
or exclusively spiritual in his views. 

The leading design of the present volume, as implied in 
its title, is to elucidate the influence of intellect and passion 
upon the health and endurance of the human organization. 
The character and importance of this influence has, it is 
believed, been but imperfectly understood and appreciated 
by mankind at large- Few, we imagine, have formed any 
adequate estimate of the sum of bodily ills which originate 
in the mind. Even the medical profession, concentrating 
their attention upon the physical, are very liable to neglect 
the mental causes of disease, and thus are patients some- 
times subjected to the harshest medicines of the pharmaco- 
poeia, the true origin of whose malady is some inward and 
rooted sorrow, which a moral balm alone can reach. 

The work wo are introducing will be divided into two 
Tarts. Under the fir.^t we shall consider the intellectual 

Operations in new of their influence upon the general func- 
tions of the body: hut as their effeots on the vita] economy 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

are less forcibly marked, and less hazardous to its welfare 
than those belonging to the passions, only the smaller por- 
tion of the volume will be embraced by this division. 

The Second Part will comprise a view of the moral 
feelings or passions in the relation which they also bear to 
our physical nature. Of these we shall, in the first place, 
offer a general definition, and such a classification of them 
as will be deemed necessary to our leading design. Next 
we shall point out their effects upon the different functions 
of the constitution ; and then describe some of the most 
important of the individual passions belonging to the three 
great classes — pleasurable, painful, and mixed — into which 
it is proposed to separate them ; thus taking occasion to 
examine more intimately their physical phenomena, and 
particular influence on the well-being of the human organ- 
ism. And then we shall make some remarks upon the 
effects of the imagination ; aiming to show how this faculty 
of the mind, when uncontrolled and disorderly, tends to 
weaken the nervous system, and injure the general health. 
The imagination here acting through the instrumentality of 
the passions morbidly excited by its licentious operation, 
such a consideration of it will not be inapposite to the 
design of the present treatise. 

As the^work before us is not addressed to any particular 
class of readers, technical expressions will be carefully 
avoided, and its matter be rendered as plain and compre- 
hensible as the nature of the subject will allow. And as 
truth, so far at least as the author can penetrate his own 
feelings, is its grand aim ; all mystical speculations and 



X INTRODUCTION. 

ungrounded theories, whether of a metaphysical or moral 
nature, will be scrupulously excluded from its pages. 

Such, then, is a summary exposition of the plan and 
purpose of the present volume, and the author has only to 
hope that the principles advocated in it may not be wholly 
unprolific of good, and that it may subserve, in a measure 
at least, the great end for which it was prepared. 



CONTENTS. - 

PART I. 

INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Man's Intellectual Nature briefly compared with that of the Animals 
next below him in the Scale of Life, . . . page 27 

CHAPTER II. 

A judicious exercise of the Intellectual Faculties is promotive both of 
Health and Happiness. — Human Nature must advance through the 
Development of Intellect. — Evils resulting from Mental Inactivity. — 
Intellectual Pursuits do not necessarily abbreviate Life. — Examples 
of Longevity among Ancient and Modern Scholars, . . 41 

CHAPTER III. 

Evil consequences that may be apprehended from overtasking the Intel- 
lectual Powers. — Rules proper to be observed by Studious Men for 
the security of their Health. — The ability to sustain Intellectual 
Labors varies in different Individuals, and consequently the propor- 
tion of time that may be safely dedicated to Study, . . 55 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Intellectual Operations are necessarily associated, to a greater or 
less extent, with Passion. — Those Mental Avocations which elicit 
the strongest Moral Feelings are most Detrimental to Health, 66 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

Mental Labors are less fatiguing and injurious when diversified than 
when confined to some one particular subject. — A temperate exercise 
of the Intellect, united with Habitual Muscular Activity, is most fa- 
vorable to the general Health of the System and to Longevity. — In- 
tellectual Faculties variously affected by different conditions of the 
Bodily Organs and Functions, .72 

CHAPTER VI. 

Evils to be apprehended from the Inordinate Exercise of the Intellect in 
Early Years, 79 

CHAPTER VII. 

Intellectual Operations, concluded. — A few General Suggestions in re- 
gard to the Education of Children. — Severe Intellectual Exertions 
are always Hazardous in Old Age, . . . .83 



PART II. 

PASSIONS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Definition of the Passions, and their General Divisions, . . 93 

CHAPTER IX. 

General Remarks on the Evils and Advantages of the Passions. — The 
Physician should investigate the Moral as well as the Physical causes 
of Disease. — Individuals, from Temperament, Education, and various 
Incidental Circumstances, differ very Strikingly in the force and char- 
acter of their passions, ....... 97 

I'll U'TI'.li X. 

The Passionfl become greatly Multiplied and Modified in Civilized Life. 
— The effect of the Passions is particularly manifested in the Vital 
Functions, aa in the Circulation, Digestion, Secretions, etc. — Certain 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

States of these Functions serve in like manner to awaken the differ- 
ent Passions. — Moral Infirmities of Men of Genius often due to those 
of a Physical Character. — Action and Reaction between Mind and 
Body, 105 



r CHAPTER XI. 

Wherein Real and Imaginary Afflictions differ from each other. — Inci- 
dental remarks naturally suggested by the Mutual Relations and De- 
pendences of our Physical and Moral Constitutions, . .118 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Passions considered more particularly. — The Pleasurable Passions, 
with their effects on the Physical Functions, summarily noticed, 123 



CHAPTER XIII. 

General Phenomena of the Painful Passions as manifested in the Bodily 
Functions, ......... 136 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Anger. — Various Phenomena distinguishing the acute state of this 
Passion, 142 

CHAPTER XV. 

Anger, concluded. — Physical Effects of its Chronic Action. — It may be 
excited by Morbid States of the Bodily Organs, and thus be strictly 
Physical in its Origin, 153 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Fear. — Its Definition. — Being essential to Self-Preservation, it belongs 
Instinctively to all Animals. — Difference between Moral and Physical 
Courage. — Certain Conditions of our Bodily Organs and Functions 
beget a Morbid Timidity of Character. — Certain Instincts conquer 
Fear. — Delicate and Nervous Constitutions are sometimes endowed 
with a remarkable degree of Courage and Firmness, . .165 



XIV CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Fear continued. — Acute Fear described, — Fascination has by some 
writers been ascribed to the extravagant influence of Fear. — Re- 
markable effects in the cure of Diseases that have often followed 
Excessive Fright, % . . .171 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Fear continued. — Death is sometimes the consequence of Extravagant 
Fear. — Various Painful Diseases are not unfrequently the consequence 
of its operation. — The Terrors and Morbid Excitements of Religion 
are oftentimes followed by the most melancholy effects on Mind and 
Body. — These effects may become greatly extended through the 
principle of Imitation or Sympathy. — Terror may operate through 
the Mother on her Unborn Offspring. — Its effects on the Hair and 
different Secretions. — The Fears awakened in the Imagination during 
Sleep, when frequent and immoderate, may be fraught with serious 
injury to Health, 187 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Fear continued. — In its more Chronic Operation it becomes the occasion 
of various Prejudicial Effects in the Animal Economy. — Superstitious 
Fears in regard to Death are in many persons a cause of much suf- 
fering both to Body and Mind. — The manner in which this event 
should be regarded. — Danger of indulging the fancy of Children in 
talcs of Supernatural Terrors. — Fortitude operates as a wholesome 
stimulus both to Mind and Body, ..... 218 

CHAPTER XX. 

Fear concluded. — That peculiar modification of Fear termed Horror, 
summarily examinedj ....... 'i.'iO 

CHAPTEK XX 1. 

Grief.— General remarks upon this Passion. — The Acute Stage, or a 
Paroxysm <>i Grief described, with the Morbid and even Fatal effects 
of which it may be productive, ...... 343 



CONTENTS. XV 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Grief continued. — Effects on the Economy from its more Slow or 
Chronic Action, 257 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Grief continued. — Despair and Suicide. — Grief undergoes certain Mod- 
ifications, and is more or less blunted by time, according to the na- 
tute of its causes. — Severe is often borne with more Resignation than 
Lighter Sorrow. — In Youth, Grief is apt to be Acute and Transient, 
in Age, Chronic and Lasting, . ... . . . 271 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Grief concluded. — Mental Dejection and even Despair may be excited 
by Morbid States of our Bodily Organs. — Different Individuals, and 
even the same at different times, owing to Incidental Circumstances, 
show different degrees of Susceptibility to the Impression both of 
Moral and Physical causes. — Importance of a Cheerful and Happy 
Temper to the Health of Childhood. — Grief is appointed to all. — 
Life is apt to be regarded as Happy or Unhappy according to the 
Fortune which marks its close, . . . . . .314 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Envy and Jealousy. — Similar in their Nature. — Secret and Dangerous in 
their Operation. — Manifest themselves even in Infancy. — Injurious 
Effects of these Passions upon Health. — Shame. — Its Nature. — The 
Phenomena which attend it. — When Extreme may be fraught with 
danger to Health and even Life. — A frequent source of Suffering 
and Disease in a state of Society, ..... 327 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Mixed Passions Defined. — Sexual Jealousy. — Its Morbid effects upon 
Mind and Body. — Bears a direct proportion to the strength of the 
Love on which it is based. — Avarice. — The Pleasurable and Painful 
Feelings belonging to it. — Effects on the Physical System. — Increases 
with Age, 338 



XVI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



Mixed Passions concluded. — Ambition. — General Consideration of it. — 
Its Nature defined. — Evils growing out of it when Inordinate. — The 
peculiar Political, as well as other circumstances of the American 
People, contribute greatly to the growth of Ambition. — Health and 
Happiness most often found associated with the Golden Mean, 349 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The Imagination when not properly Disciplined and Restrained, becomes 
a source both of Moral and Physical Disorder.— Causes of a Disor- 
derly Imagination. — Erotic Melancholy or Monomania. — Has its 
origin often in an Uncontrolled and Romantic Imagination, and is 
frequently excited by an Unreasonable Indulgence in Novel Reading. 
— Its Description. — Its most common subjects. — The Nervous 
Temperament. — Securities against a Morbid Ascendency of the 
Imagination, and its consequent Nervous Infirmities, . . 362 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

General Conclusion. — The Intellectual Operations a far less frequent 
occasion of Disease than the Passions. — Examples Illustrative of the 
Influence exercised by the Mind upon the Bodily Functions. — Case 
of Col. Townshend, who could Die and come to Life again at 
Pleasure. — Our Physical Interest demands a Virtuous Regulation of 
the Moral Feelings. — Self-Reliance and Strong Volition essential to 
the perfection of Health and Character. — Moral Education of Chil- 
dren should be Early Commenced. — Duties of Parents. — Concluding 
Remarks, .......... 377 



PART FIRST. 

INTELLECTUAL OPEBATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

MAN ? S INTELLECTUAL NATURE BRIEFLY COMPARED WITH THAT 
OF THE ANIMALS NEXT BELOW HIM IN THE SCALE OF LIFE. 

Man is distinguished from all other known animals, not 
only by his peculiar conformation of body — by his erect and 
dignified attitude — but by a far higher measure of intellectu- 
al endowment, and a consequently greater extension of his 
relations with external things. Remarkable, however, as 
this superiority of our species certainly is, still may it be 
questioned if, through human pride, it has not been some- 
thing exaggerated, or a broader separation between us and 
the lower animals been assumed than Nature herself will 
acknowledge. Thus, by some metaphysical writers, all 
glimmerings of the higher mental faculties have been denied 
to brutes, and all their acts been ascribed to the direct inv 
pulse of a resistless instinct. This is evidently wrong; 
certainly in the physiological meaning of the word instinct. 
The simple animal instincts may be defined to be peculiar 
inward feelings, or sensations originating urgent wants or 
desires, which stimulate or call forth certain muscular ac- 
tions, whose purpose or end is, by satisfying the want, to re- 



28 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

lieve the sensation that excited it ; the series of physical 
actions produced being always understood to take place inde- 
pendent of education or imitation, and without any foresight 
of the end to be attained by them. Or, to put the definition 
in another form : Instincts consist in particular physical 
conditions, and consequent sensations, impelling to some 
definite train of muscular movements, which contribute or 
are essential to the preservation of the individual, or the 
continuance of the species, and thus grow out of the " stimu- 
lus of necessity." Abundant examples illustrative of the 
foregoing definitions of instincts might be adduced, but the 
appetites of hunger and thirst will be sufficient for our pur- 
pose. These instinctive wants or desires are originated or 
excited by physical conditions of the stomach, or system at 
large, which demand the supply of food and drink, and 
thereby serve as monitors to solicit the co-operative acts 
requisite to furnish such supply. Hence animals, so soon 
as born, and independent, therefore, of either education or 
imitation, go through, and as perfectly as ever afterward, 
all those complicated muscular movements needful to meet 
the calls of nutrition. Instinctive feelings, when simple 
and uncontrolled, almost uniformly elicit instinctive actions. 
Simple, undiscerning, undeviating instinct — admitting 
BUCh an unmixed principle — can obviously only exist in the 
humblest forms of animal life as the invertebrate. In the 
Lowest, even, <>!" the vertebratOj or vertebra] animals — those 
furnished with a Bpinal marrow and interna] bony system — 
some 1'iint glimmerings of an intelligent principle begin t<> 
show themselves, mingling with, modifying ami exercising 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 29 

some evident dominion over the mere instinctive operations. 
It is in this division of the animal kingdom that we begin 
to discover variations in individual character, in intelli- 
gence, in temper, &c. ; and the higher we ascend in it, the 
greater is the degree of such variations. " Thus every one 
knows that there are stupid dogs and good-tempered dogs, 
as there are stupid men or good-tempered men. But no 
one could distinguish between a stupid bee and a clever 
bee, or between a good-tempered wasp and an ill-tempered 
wasp, simply because all their actions are prompted by an 
unvarying instinct." * 

Ascending in this division of animate being, we find the 
intelligent principle, with the faculty of reasoning, advanc- 
ing, and apparently in correspondence with the development 
of the brain. And in man, whose brain is most fully de- 
veloped — most complex in its fabric — the intellectual facul- 
ties are far more elevated than in any other example, as yet 
known, in animate nature. In him the instinctive propensi- 
ties obviously become subject — though in different degrees 
in different individuals — to the nobler reasoning powers. 

Instinct will, I think, be generally found in the inverse 
ratio of reason — the latter faculty rendering it less neces- 
sary to animal preservation. It ever seems to be propor- 
tioned to the necessities for it. In the infant, instinct 
being the more necessary in the absence of reason, we 
observe more obvious traces of it than in the adult, though 
feeble compared with what the young of the inferior ani- 

* Carpenter's Human Physiology. 



30 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

mals present. The human female shows undeniable evi- 
dences of a necessary instinct, in her strong love for her 
offspring on the instant of its birth, and sometimes even 
before its birth ; in her impulsive desire to nourish it ; her 
ceaseless care in its preservation, and her indomitable 
energy in its defence from danger. Unless her nature be 
perverted by disease, or entirely depraved by vice, the 
human can at first no more escape such instinctive feelings 
than the brute mother. But in the latter, they are tran- 
sient — lasting only while their young need their protection ; 
and, in some, they are evinced merely by the careful pre- 
paration for the welfare of their offspring before they come 
into existence ; whereas, in the former, they soon becoming 
mingled with, modified, widened and strengthened, by feel- 
ings and principles far more exalted — of a moral and 
intellectual character — we have, growing out of such com- 
bination, the most devoted, the most enduring, the most 
self-sacrificing of all human affections — a mother's love. 

Jn the savage condition of man, especially as witnessed 
in the inferior races, the instinctive propensities are more 
marked, active, dominant, than in his state of civilization 
and intellectual advancement. In individual men, too, it 
will appear as a general truth, that the more eminently de- 
veloped are the higher faculties of the mind, the less will be 
the instinctive! manifestations. 

In living nature, all naturalists, I believe, admit, that 
there exists something like a gradually ascending chain, 
rising from the humblest plant, passing through the 
zoophyte, or transition link, to the animal scale, and so up- 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 31 

ward to man — its highest limit as yet disclosed to human 
intelligence. In tracing, too, this rising chain of life, it will 
be seen that structure and function ever advance in a cor- 
responding relation — the general development of the former 
being an unerring measure of the perfection of the latter. 
Thus, on reaching the naturalist's second great division of 
the animal kingdom, vertebrata, or that to which belong a 
brain and spinal marrow, we begin, as I previously remarked, 
to discover, in addition to the simple instinct which proba- 
bly alone governs the lower or brainless animals, some faint 
evidences of powers of a higher mould, and which grow 
more and more clear, in proportion as the organization, par- 
ticularly of the brain, approaches nearer and nearer to that 

of our own. Hence, in the class of animals whose brain 

t 
and general nervous system most closely resemble man's, do 

we det( ct the rudiments of nearly all the human mental 
faculties, and consequently an approximation, imperfect, to 
be sure, still an obvious approximation to a rational nature. 
Although this gradation in the vegetable and animal king- 
dom — this gradual rise from the humblest to the loftiest 
organic forms — is sufficiently obvious in its general features, 
yet it cannot be denied that, in its particular parts, it will 
sometimes be found less direct and simple than might be 
inferred from the statements of many naturalists. Still, 
that there is a general, and mostly an easy advance in 
organic structure and function, will scarce be contra- 
dicted. 

A question here presents itself, How widely is man re- 
moved from the most manlike of the inferior animals % Do 



32 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

his reasoning powers differ from those of the latter in degree 
only, or in kind 1 Is he raised in his nature out of the pale 
of the animal kingdom? Is there no easy gradation to the 
human link in the chain of life, or is the breach wider here 
than at any other point ? Or may not the step from the 
highest race of the ape to the most humble of our own, be 
really easier than human pride has been generally willing to 
acknowledge ? 

The Asiatic orang-outang, simia satyrus, bo th as respects 
structure and mental powers, would seem to claim as near a 
kindred to humanity, as any other known animal. It has 
been, I believe, hitherto found only in the Islands of Borneo 
and Sumatra, in the Indian Ocean. The Malays believe 
this animal to possess rational faculties, and the power of 
speech, which he cunningly avoids exercising lest he should 
be put to work, — the black races always regarding labor as 
a great punishment. Cuvier believed, and the opinion is not 
improbable, that the powerful pongo of Borneo, of whose 
courageous and manlike acts we have such marvellous ac- 
counts, is only the adult simia satyrus. The specimens of 
this animal that have been transported to Europe or the 
United States, having been all young, and falling victims to 
an ungenial climate and unsuitable food, before attaining 
their full physical or mental maturity, our knowledge of the 
utmOBt development of its capacities must consequently be 
but imperfect : still, even under Buch adverse circumstances 
have been able to contemplate these animals, have they 
astonished ae by their display of the habits and feelings of 
our own nature. But the accounts given by travellers of 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 33 

tlie orang-outang in its native condition, and its close imita- 
tions of the actions of man, even making the fullest allowance 
for exaggeration, excite our still higher wonder. 

The chimpanzee, simia troglodytes, an African ape, would 
appear, from recent examinations made by naturalists, to 
approximate in structure and function even closer to the hu- 
man species than the Asiatic orang-outang, to which we have 
just been alluding. How near, therefore, these remarkable 
animals in a propitious climate, and under a well devised 
plan of instruction, might be brought to the inferior races of 
mankind, our data are insufficient to warrant an opinion. 
Placed beside the cultivated European, the distinction both 
in their structure and mental endowments is broad indeed, 
but it becomes much lessened when the comparison is made, 
— and such is the only just one,— with the lowest of our own 
species, as the savage New Hollander or the Bosjesman 
Hottentot. But then man differs widely enough even from 
the most manlike of the brute creation, to warrant natural- 
ists in not merely ranking him as a distinct species, but in 
placing him in a separate order. No one would now enter- 
tain the ridiculous notion of Monboddo and Rousseau, that 
man is nothing more than an ape, improved under moral and 
physical influences. Nor should I be willing to admit him, 
on the system of progressive development of Lamarck, and 
the author of the Vestiges of Creation, to be but a monkey 
advanced through this principle of development one step 
upward in the ascending scale of life; but I would rather 
choose to regard him as a species, from his primary creation, 
distinct from that of all other animate beings. 
2* 



34 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Man would appear, on the evidence of geology, to be 
among the latest, as he is the most perfect of organic crea- 
tions. And it would almost seem as though nature, 
through successive destructions and new creations, had 
been progressively advancing in her living structures, 
gradually improving upon her early types, to the occupants 
of the present and last surface of our earth. According to 
the distinguished geologist Cuvier, the globe on which we 
dwell is composed of various layers or strata of rocks, those 
on which all the others rest being the most ancient, and of 
course representing the first or internal stratum. On this 
primitive stratum animals existed, but only of the lowest 
forms. Then upon this comes another layer, the surface of 
the primary, with all its inhabitants, having been over- 
whelmed by some dread convulsion. Here again, in the 
lapse of time, other living beings succeeded, but as is inferred 
from their abundant organic remains, of a somewhat more 
advanced construction. Thus has revolution after revolu- 
tion been going on, each succeeded by new worlds of life, 
until we come to the present surface, or the alluvial deposits, 
— not the result of any grand convulsion, — in which the re- 
mains of animals now existing arc alone discoverable. These 
views of" Cuvier do not accord in all their points with those 
derived from more recent geological observations. The pri- 
mary rooka have been found destitute of organic remains, 
and hence are called azoic, implying absence of life. There 
then have been a period in the formation of our globe, 

when there was an entire destitution of both animal and 

table life; and furthermore, the organic relics found in 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 35 

some of the earlier geological formations, show a higher ani- 
mal organization than is consistent with a regular or uniform 
progressive advancement in the scale of life. Still, it would 
seem to be true that at each new geological era, nature has 
made some general improvement on her previous animal 
structures, and that, therefore, on the present surface of the 
earth are found the most perfect and complicated, at the 
head of which stands man, the masterpiece of all earthly cre- 
ations. He belongs alone to the present face of the globe, 
no fossil remains of him having ever been found in any of 
its older strata. He is the latest then, as well as the most 
perfect of the earthly works of creative power. Millions of 
ages, for aught we know, may have been spent in reaching 
the complicated organisms presented in man and other of 
the mammalia occupying the present face of the globe. And 
the inquiry cannot but come up in every reflecting mind : 
Is here the end, the consummation ? Is the world finished ? 
Has nature attained the summit of her scale ? Have these 
mighty revolutions of foregone times now ceased, and is man 
therefore to continue the terrestrial master-touch of his 
Maker ? Or, in the course of ages, may not yet another 
convulsion arise, desolating the present surface of the earth, 
and on the new one which succeeds, nature make a still fur- 
ther advance in animal life, and produce a race of beings as 
much excelling man as he does any prior creation ? • And 
yielding a little license to the fancy, may we not imagine the 
learned naturalists on this new crust, puzzling their wits 
over the fossil bones of our own proud race, and marvelling 
to what humble order of beings they could have belonged ? 



36 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Analogy would certainly favor the belief, that the present 
face of our globe is at some future time to be swept over by 
the hand of desolation ; when, or through what destroying 
influence, the human mind can form no conjecture. Thou- 
sands of ages may first elapse, or physical causes, of which 
man can have no prescience, may be now at work in the Uni- 
verse, preparing the way for a speedy consummation of this 
dread convulsion. To my mind there appears more evidence 
for believing that nature has advancedin her scale of animal 
life through successive destructions, and new and improved 
creations, than by the system of progressive development, 
or the gradual transformation of one species into another 
and of a higher character, put forth many years ago by La- 
marck, and recently revived and somewhat modified in that 
beautifully written, though we are compelled to add, too 
fanciful work, the Vestiges of Creation. But then this whole 
subject of cosmogony, or world-making, is so obscure and 
difficult, so wanting in well established data, that I 'fear we 
can make little out of it unless we admit some aid from the 
imagination. 

In conclusion of this somewhat desultory chapter, let us 
brieflv inquire how the mine! of man differs from that of the 
inferior, even the most sagacious of the inferior animal. 
The human is distinguished from the brute mind in the far 
higher degree of its intellectual capacities, its immeasurable 
unprovability, and in the possession of moral sentiments, — 
but faint evidences of which are exhibited by any of the 
Lower orders of the animal creation. .Man alone, too, has 
li. a language, or the power of expressing his thought 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 37 

and feelings by words or articulate sounds. Many of the 
inferior species have doubtless some power of communicating 
with each other through sounds, combined with actions and 
gestures, but such is widely different from a vocal language, 
though probably all that their rude faculties and simple feel- 
ings require. Several birds, moreover, may be taught to 
pronounce words and even to repeat sentences ; but to asso- 
ciate thoughts with them is altogether above their power. 
They articulate mechanically, through imitation. Language 
implies a connected series, an association of ideas, a degree 
of intelligence which the brute mind cannot attain. It be- 
longs only to the more exalted moral and intellectual capa- 
bilities of man, and these capabilities are dependent upon 
this power of speech for their full exercise and development. 

"Weeping and laughter, as expressive of certain mental 
conditions, as sorrow, and mirth, and satisfaction, would 
appear to be peculiar to our own species. Some animals 
beside man would seem to shed tears, but whether from 
grief is % matter of doubt ; but none, I believe, not even the 
most manlike of the apes, ever evince a mirthful state of 
mind by laughter. Indeed their countenances are always 
marked even by a ludicrous expression of gravity. 

The faculty of reflection, at least to any obvious extent, 
would appear to belong only to man. By reflection is meant 
the action of the mind upon itself; or the turning inward, 
or throwing back, the thoughts upon themselves, and thus 
creating new mental combinations, or new thoughts out of 
the ideas obtained through the medium of the senses. And 
from this compound operation of the mind do we derive an 



38 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

additional and exhaustless spring of knowledge, with new 
motives to action, and a measureless increase in our re- 
lations with external things. 

The relations of the brute animal to the objects among 
which he is placed have reference chiefly, if not solely, to 
the gratification of his appetites, or the satisfaction of his 
bodily wants, and his preservation from injury or destruc- 
tion. His sensual desires pacified, and unthreatened by 
danger, he commonly falls asleep, or, at least, remains at 
rest. But such is not true of man, at least of civilized man. 
With his appetites satisfied, with ample provision for every 
physical necessity, and exempt from even the remotest 
apprehension of harm, still actuated by a class of wants 
above those of his mere animal nature, does he remain 
awake.; observing the objects and phenomena around him ; 
reflecting, perhaps, on his own mysterious nature, its com- 
plicated relations, its inscrutable destiny. Or, unsatisfied 
with the present, is stretching his view far into the dim and 
misty future, and judging, or trying to judge of Its fast- 
coming events. Nor yet can his expanding mind be 
bounded by the world in which he dwells, but grasps at 
the universe and eternity, and space and time are too 
limited to contain it. 

Tin.-, curiosity, this insatiable appetite for knowledge, or 
the discovery of new truths, seems ail attribute especially of 
our own nature, and is the stimulus ever urging us forward 
in the path of intellectual advancement, Scarce has the 
infant become familial with the Light of heaven; hardly 
m begin to brighten its vacant eye, ere it 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 39 

evinces its incipient curiosity in touching, tasting, smelling, 
hearkening, and is thus treasuring up ideas of sensation, 
which are afterward to be compared, abstracted, combined, 
or, in other words, to be worked up into various new forms, 
constituting new and inexhaustible sources of mental 
progress. 

It may be proper that I should here mention one other 
remarkable tendency in man's mind, and so far as we can 
have any evidence, in his alone, and therefore distinguishing 
him from all the rest of the animal kingdom ; — it is to 
believe in some superior, invisible, and controlling existence. 
Yarious forms and attributes may be ascribed to this power 
in different conditions, and by different races of man ; but I 
think it must be yielded, although some travellers have 
endeavored to prove the contrary, that no people or nation 
— I do not here speak of individuals — have ever been dis- 
covered entirely destitute of such belief. And associated 
with it is the fervent desire and confident expectation of 
passing after death to the blessed abode of this unseen 
power, and dwelling for ever amid joys, and among beings 
far more exalted than any which this earth can afford. 
How shall we explain such belief in the human mind 1 Is 
it innate, or was it implanted there by our Creator 1 Did it 
originate in an early revelation to our race, and which was 
communicated by tradition from age to age 1 Or was it 
begotten of man's longing after immortal life and undying 
bliss ? Such questions cannot, of course, receive a categori- 
cal answer. At any rate it forms one of the strongest 



40 Mental hygIeniI. 

arguments of natural religion — of which I am here only 
speaking — for man's immortality. 

To man, then, in addition to his sensual wants which he 
holds in common with tLe brutes, belong those of a moral 
and intellectual, and I may also add of a religious character; 
and his external relations being correspondently multiplied, 
new feelings, new desires, new passions must be generated, 
which, while they open sources of enjoyment immeasurably 
exceeding any possessed by the lower animals, may beget a 
train of moral, and their consequent physical ills, burdening 
life with sorrow, and almost raising a doubt whether it 
should be viewed as a gift of mercy, or an imposition of 
wrath. Thus in the present disposition of things, do we 
ever find a system of compensation, an attempt, as it were, 
at a general equalization of enjoyment. 

The inferior animal, if his appetites are appeased, and 
he is exempt from physical pain and the fear of danger, is 
apparently happy in the simple feeling of existence. But 
what torture of mind may not our own species endure, even 
when free from all bodily suffering, safe from every harm, 
and with resources, even in superfluity, for the gratification 
of every sensual want? , An agony sometimes so terrible as 
to diive its miserable victim to the horrid alternative of 
self-destruction, a catastrophe rarely brought about by any 
amount of physical pain. Fortunately, however, by a judi- 
cious education of our intellectual and moral nature, much, 
very much may be done to avoid suoh menial sufferings, and 
the bodily diseases which bo generally Bupervene 
i 



CHAPTER II. 

A JUDICiQUS EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES IS 

PROMOTIVE BOTH OF HEALTH AND HAPPINESS. HUMAN 

NATURE MUST ADVANCE THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF 

INTELLECT. EVILS RESULTING FROM MENTAL INACTIVITY. 

INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS DO NOT NECESSARILY ABBRE- 
VIATE LIFE. EXAMPLES OF LONGEVITY AMONG ANCIENT 

AND MODERN SCHOLARS. 

v That the noblest powers of our nature should have been 
designed ibr use and improvement, one might think would 
be universally admitted ; nevertheless, there are not wanting 
those, eminent too for their learning, who have contended 
that the savage is our only natural and happy condition. 
Thus man — for such has been the picture drawn of him — 
in the golden age of his early creation, dwelling in a mild 
and balmy climate, abounding in vegetable productions 
suitable to his wants, lived solitary, naked, savage ; roaming 
without care or thought the vast forests which he held in 
common with the brute, and feasting at will on the roots and 
fruits which the teeming soil spontaneously brought forth. 
Then was he pure, gentle, innocent ; and exempt from all 



42 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

those multiform and painful maladies wliich now afflict and 
shorten his career, his life glided on in a smooth and happy 
current, and when death at last overtook him, it came, not 
as at present, fraught with pains and terrors, but like the 
tranquil sleep that steals over the wearied senses of innocent 
childhood. Here, free from all those lights and shadows of 
the soul which spring from cultivated intellect, like the 
brutes, he was happy in the bare consciousness of existence, 
— in exercising his limbs — in basking in the sunshine, or 
cooling himself in the shade, — and in the gratification of his 
mere animal, propensities. 

" Pride then was not, nor arts that pride to aid ; 
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade ; 
The same his table, and the same his bed ; 
No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed. 
In the same temple, the resounding wood, 
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God." 

But that such a primeval state of blissful ignorance, 
health and purity ever existed, we have no other evidence 
than what rests on the fancies of poetry, or the dreams of 
poetic philosophy. The savages of the present day, who, 
one would suppose ought to conic most nearly to this blessed 
state of nature, present a picture the very opposite of that 
described. 

Sonic of tin; ancient philosophers were in the practice of 

decrying reason, and of asking whether any thing could be 
given by the gods to man more likely to make him unhap- 
py. RduSSeau has advocated with much speciousness and 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 43 

sophistry this unthinking, savage, or what he calls the 
natural condition of our species. He contends that medita- 
tion is opposed to health, and therefore contrary to nature, 
and so he who gives himself up to a habit of reflection is a 
degenerated animal. On like grounds he lauds the custom 
of certain Indian tribes of flattening the heads of their new- 
born infants, as it saves them from the pernicious effects of 
genius. 

It mi^ht, it appears to me, as reasonably be contended 
that the infant is the natural condition of the individual, as 
the savage and ignorant that of the species. The tendency 
of man is* obviously to civilization and mental progress ; 
whence the highest moral and intellectual advancement of 
which he is capable, is the only natural state that can be 
predicated of him., It is this mental progress that elevates 
one man, one race,' one age above another. To this do we 
owe all the arts, refinements and comforts of modern life. 
It is this to which min naturally, I may say instinctively 
aspires. Intellect is indeed power, no bounds can be fixed 
to it. The laws of nature, the force of the elements, the 
swift lightning, are all turned and rendered subservient to 
its mighty purposes. Whatever man is to attain, must be 
through his intellectual advancement, — through this lies his 
destiny upon the present earth. Through the power of his 
intellect, if our species last, must he at length inherit the 
earth ; all other animal forms must recede before his in- 
crease, and all available matter be worked up into his own 
superior organization. Such period is indeed far distant, if 
we measure time by our own little span of existence ; but if 



44 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the earth and our species remain un destroyed, it will inevi- 
tably come. Human intellect may yet be but in its dawn- 
ings ; it may have done little, scarce any thing, in compari- 
son with what it is destined to accomplish. Let us not then, 
with some brain-sick poets and philosophers, presume to un- 
dervalue a power so vast, so boundless, so all-controlling, — 
a power through which our Creator has raised us above every 
other living creature, and by the advance of which alone we 
can ascend in the scale of creation. If ignorance is bliss, as 
is contended by some, then would it be bliss to be a brute. 

Furthermore, is it not through a high and proper culti- 
vation of the intellectual, that the moral nature is to be ele- 
vated and improved? I hold the belief, though I know the 
popular arguments that may be brought against it, that the 
most perfect state of intellect would necessarily imply the 
most perfect state of morals, inasmuch as it would enable us 
to calculate the moral with the same precision that we now 
do the physical laws ; for the former, I believe, are just as 
settled, just as inflexible as the latter, and that any devia- 
tion, therefore, from moral rectitude — could we trace it in 
all its bearings, in all its remote connections — would be found 
as surely followed by suffering as any mechanical violence 
done to the body. But in the former case the suffering is 
generally indirect, removed from, and in consequence not 
readily traceable by our short-sighted intellect to its true 
Bouroe; while in the latter it is immediate, evident in its 
relation to its cause, and which is therefore guardedly 
shunned. No one. in his proper senses, will jump from the 
giddy precipice; no one. however he may be pained with 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 45 

cold, will lay his hands on the burning embers, for the effect 
is direct, palpable, and obvious, therefore, to the most com- 
mon understanding. And were our intelligence sufficiently 
exalted, it would, I doubt not, discover the same necessary 
connection between violations of the moral laws, and suffering 
or punishment ; and then man would no sooner swerve from 
a moral law than he would throw himself from the headlong 
steep, or touch the living coal. We now rush into evil as 
the insect does into the blaze of the candle, from stupidity, 
or our purblind intellect failing to show us the inevitable 
consequences. A supreme intelligence could not go wrong. 

The mind, like the body, demands exercise. That the 
proudest faculties of our -nature were intended for slothful 
inaction,— that talents were given us to remain buried and 
unproductive, is repugnant alike to reason and analogy. 
There is, indeed, no, power of the living economy, however 
humble, but needs action, both on its own account and on 
that of the general constitution. So closely united by sym- 
pathies are all our functions, that the judicious exercise of 
each one, beside conducing to its individual welfare, must 
contribute in a greater or less degree, a healthful influence 
to every other. 

Man, as already affirmed, discovers a natural desire for 
knowledge ; and the very exertion necessary to its attain- 
ment, and the delight experienced in the gratification of this 
innate curiosity, diffuse a wholesome excitement throughout 
the system. There is a pleasure in the exercise of thought, 
in whose kindly effects all the functions must in some 
measure participate. Every new acquisition of knowledge, 



46 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

every new truth brings with it the highest, the purest en- 
joyment ; and, different from our sensual and exciting 
pleasures, followed by no wasted health, no moral depres- 
sion, no regret, no repentance. The man who feels that he 
is wiser at night than he was in the morning, feels himself 
advanced in the scale of creation, and therefore happier. 
Agreeable and well-regulated intellectual occupations are, I 
conceive, as essential to the soundness of the mind, as are 
judicious exercises to that of the body; and as the health of 
the latter, it must be admitted, conduces to that of the for- 
mer, so, likewise, as it will be my uniform endeavor to es- 
tablish in the succeeding pages of this volume, does a sound 
state of the mind impart a salutary influence to the func- 
tions of the body. 

The mind, then, needs employment, not only for its own 
sake, but also for that of the organism with which it is so 
intricately involved.. Mental inactivity, in the existing con- 
stitution of society, is the occasion of an amount of moral 
and physical suffering, which, to one who had never thought 
upon the subject, would appear almost incredible. From 
this proceeds that tccdium vita — that dreadful irksomeness 
of life — so often witnessed among the opulent, or what arc 
termed the privileged classes of society, who are engaged in 
no active or interesting pursuits, and who, already possess- 
ing the liberal gifts of fortune, and consequently the means 
of gratifying all their natural ami artificial wants, lack the 
stimulus oi' necessity to awaken ami sustain in wholesome 
action their mental energies. Hence, although they are ob- 
jects of envj to those whose Btraitened circumstances call 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 47 

for continued and active exertions, yet is their situation 
oftentimes any thing but enviable. Their cup of life, 
drugged with the gall and. bitterness of ennui, their para- 
mount wish is to escape from themselves— from the painful 
listlessness of a surfeited existence. The mind must be 
occupied, else gloomy and discontented, if not wicked feel- 
ings, will be likely to enter and abide there. To the enjoy- 
ment of retirement, internal resources, a " stock of ideas," 
such as comparatively few possess, are demanded. 

Labor, of some sort, either of mind or body, is appointed 
to our race. Mother Eve and the Old Serpent are charged 
with entailing upon us this curse, as it is generally es- 
teemed. But whatever it may have been originally, it has 
become absolutely necessary both to our moral and physical 
well-being. With our present constitutions, we should, I 
imagine, be miserable creatures indeed, with nothing to do 
but to sit under fig-trees in the garden of Eden. Paradoxi- 
cal as it may seem, yet is it questionable if a much heavier 
curse could be imposed on man, with the nature he now 
possesses, than the entire gratification of all his wishes, 
leaving nothing for his hopes, desires,, or struggles. The 
feeling that life is without aim or purpose — that it is desti- 
tute of any motive to action — is of all others the most de- 
pressing, the most insupportable to a moral and intellectual 
being. Man, at the end, is very apt to lament that exist- 
ence has been a failure, because he has not reached some 
point — attained some eminent good — at which he could sit 
down content and happy, and to which all his hopes and 
labors had been directed. But we should know — and the 



48 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

earlier we know this the better — that life is a chase, and a 
chase after something which we never overtake. And, is it 
not the chase, more than the possession of the game, that 
brings joy and animation to the huntsman 1 Let us, then, 
enjoy the chase, and be satisfied when it is finished, though 
the game has continued to elude our pursuit. 

Men of different constitutions, habits, talents, and edu- 
cation, will, as it might be supposed, require different sorts 
and degrees of mental action. Such as are endowed with 
vigorous intellectual powers, and in whose exercise they 
have been long accustomed to indulge, are exposed to most 
suffering when their minds are left unemployed. Those, for 
example, who are fond of study, and have been long used to 
devote a part of their time to its prosecution, may even sus- 
tain a manifest injury, both in their moral and physical 
health, by a sudden and continued interruption of such 
habit ; a painful void being thus left in the mind, indirectly 
depressing its feelings, and, by a necessary consequence, all 
the important functions of life. 

It is told of Petrarch, when at Vaucluse, that his friend, 
the Bishop of Cavillon, fearing lest his too close devotion 
to study would wholly ruin his health, which was already 
much impaired, having procured of him the key of his libra- 
ry, Immediately locked up his books and writing-desk, say- 
ing to him, " I interdict you from pen, ink, paper and books, 
for the space of ten days." Petrarch, though much pained 
in his feelings, nevertheless submitted to the mandate. 
The first day was passed by him in the most tedious man- 
ner ; during the second, he suffered under a constant head- 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 49 

ache : and, on the third, he became affected with fever. 
The bishop now taking pity on his condition, returned him 
his key, and thus restored him to his previous health. 

Those, again, who, while yet in the vigor of life, retire 
from their wonted business, be it mercantile or professional, 
and thus all at once break up their habits of mental appli- 
cation, are apt to fall into a painful state of listlessness or 
ennui, and which, in certain temperaments, will often grow 
into a morbid melancholy, shading every scene and every 
prospect with a dismal and hopeless gloom. And some- 
times the disgust and loathing of existence become so ex- 
treme, that they rid themselves of its hated burden with 
their own hands. This state of moral depression, if long 
continued, may also originate painful and fatal physical in- 
firmities, or may pass into some settled form of insanity, espe- 
cially that of monomania. In some instances it will change 
into, or alternate with, a reckless and ungovernable excite- 
ment; the individual running into wild extravagance, or 
rash speculations ; giving himself up to habits of gambling, 
or gross intemperance, to relieve the painful void in his pur- 
poseless existence. 

Elderly persons, who all at once give up their accustomed 
occupations, and consequently mental activity, and retire to 
enjoy their ease and leisure, will not uncommonly, especially 
if they had been previously free livers, experience a rapid 
breaking up of their mental, and perhaps bodily powers also, 
passing sometimes into a more or less complete state of what 
is termed senile dementia. 

Under the circumstances of mental inertia to which I 
3 



50 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

have been referring, it is often observed that any thing 
arousing the mind to exertion, even positive misfortunes, 
will, by reviving the almost palsied feelings, be attended 
with a manifestly salutary influence. Thus is it that the re- 
tired opulent are oftentimes, if not past the age of action, 
made happier, healthier, and I may likewise add better, by 
the loss of so much of their property as to render renewed 
exertions necessary to their subsistence. Retirement from 
long-established and active duties demands intellectual and 
moral resources, to which few, in the present condition of 
society, can claim a title. 

A mistaken, though generally received notion exists, that 
studious habits and intellectual exertions tend to injure the 
health, and prematurely exhaust the living energies ; that 
they are prosecuted at the expense of the body, and must 
therefore hasten its decay. Such unfortunate consequences, 
however, are far from being necessary, unless the mental 
labors are urged to an unwarrantable excess, when, as in all 
overstrained exertions, whether of body or mind, various 
prejudicial effects may be rationally anticipated. I do not 
mean to assert that those in whom the intellect is chiefly en- 
gaged will enjoy the same athletic strength, or exhibit equal 
muscular development with others whose pursuits arc of a 
more mechanical character, — for nature seldom lavishes upon 
us a full complement of her various gifts, — but I have no 
hesitation in believing that under prudent habits of life, and 
with a naturally sound constitution, they may preserve as 
uniform health, and live as long as any other class of per- 
sons.^In support of such belief, abundant instances might 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 51 

be cited, both from ancient and modern times, of men emi- 
nently distinguished for the amount and profundity of their 
mental labors, who, being temperate and regular in their 
habits, have continued to enjoy firm health, and have attained 
a protracted existence. Indeed, the observation has been 
made by some eminent writer, that " one of the rewards of 
philosophy is long life." Let me illustrate by a few exam- 
ples. Among the moderns, Harvey lived to eighty-one, Jen- 
ner to seventy-five, Heberden to ninety-two, Boerhaave to 
seventy, Locke to seventy-three, Bacon to seventy-eight, 
Galileo to seventy-eight, Sir Edward Coke to eighty-four, 
Bentham to eighty-five, Newton to eighty-five, and Fontanelle 
to a hundred. Boyle, Leibnitz, Yolney, Voltaire, Buffon, 
and a multitude of others of less note that could be named, 
lived to very advanced ages. And the remarkable longevity 
of many of the G-erman scholars, who have devoted them- 
selves almost exclusively to the pursuits of science and liter- 
ature, is doubtless sufficiently familiar to my readers. Pro- 
fessor Blumenbach, the distinguished Grerman naturalist, 
died not many years ago at the age of eighty-eight ; and 
Doctor Olbers, the celebrated astronomer of Bremen, in his 
eighty-first year. 

Baron Berzelius, the distinguished Swedish chemist, the 
magnitude of whose intellectual labors, and the number of 
whose scientific publications are almost incredible, died re- 
cently at Stockholm in his seventieth year. 

Of the prominent intellectual men of our own country, 
many might also be mentioned who attained to very great 
ages. Chief Justice Marshall and Thomas Jefferson reached 



52 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

their eighty-fourth, year; Doctor Franklin and John Jay 
their eighty-fifth ; James Madison his eighty-seventh ; John 
Adams his ninety-first, and John Quincy Adams his eightieth. 
Now all these men, it is well known, were, during the greater 
portion of their lives, engaged in the most profound mental 
labors. Doctor Franklin continued his public services till 
he was eighty-two, and his intellectual exertions to near the 
close of his life. In a letter to one of his friends, written 
when he was eighty-two years old, speaking of his advanced 
age he says : " By living twelve years beyond David's period, 
I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity 
when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet, had I 
gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most ac- 
tive years of my life, employed too, in matters of the greatest 
importance." 

The ancient sages, however, seem to have been privileged 
in respect to health and longevity, above those of modern 
days. Physical education was at their period held in much 
higher regard. More of their time was passed in the open 
air, and in active, muscular exercise, than is common with 
our own scholars. Their studies were often prosecuted 
without doors, and not a few of them taught their pupils, 
and accomplished even many of their astonishing intellectual 
UborB whilst walking in the fields and groves. It was in 
this way that Aristotle imparted his instructions, whence, 

probably, came his disciples to be called peripatetics — the 

Greek verb wepvirarem, peripeUeo^ meaning to walk about, or 
to walk abroad. 

Socrates had no fixed place for his lectures, instructing 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 53 

Ms pupils sometimes in the groves of Academus, sometimes 
on the banks of the Ilyssus, or wherever, indeed, he might 
chance to he with them. The eminent scholars of those 
days were likewise in the habit of travelling from country to 
country to disseminate their stores of knowledge. 

I will close the present chapter by citing a few out of 
the numerous and best authenticated examples of longevity 
among the philosophers and learned men of antiquity. Ho- 
mer, it is generally admitted, lived to be very old ; so also 
did the philosopher Pythagoras, and the historian Plutarch. 
Thucydides, the celebrated Greek historian, and Solon, the 
famous lawgiver of Athens, reached the age of eighty. IJlato 
died in his eighty-first year. Pittacus and Thales, two of 
the seven wise men of Greece, lived, the former to be eighty 
and the latter ninety-six. Xenophon, the Greek historian, 
and G-alen, the distinguished physician, the latter of whom 
is said to have written no less than three hundred volumes, 
both attained their ninetieth year. Carneades, a celebrated 
philosopher of Cyrene in Africa, and founder of a sect called 
the third or new Academy, reached the same age. It is 
stated of Carneades that he was so intemperate in his thirst 
after knowledge, that he did not even give himself time to 
comb his head or pare his nails. Sophocles, the celebrated 
tragic poet of Athens, died in his ninety-fifth year ; and 
then, according to one account, not in the course of nature, 
but by being choked with a grapestone. Other accounts 
have placed his death a little earlier, and referred it to a 
different accident, but all agree that he exceeded his nine- 
tieth year. Zeno, the founder of the sect of the Stoics, lived 



54 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

to be ninety-eight. Hippocrates expired in his ninety-ninth 
year, and, as we read, free from all disorders of mind or 
body. Xenophanes, an eminent Greek writer, and the 
founder of a sect of philosophers in Sicily called Eleatic, ar- 
rived to a hundred, and Democritus to the extreme age of 
a hundred and nine. I am aware that there is a little dis- 
crepancy in the statement of different historians in regard 
to some of the above ages, but there is no disagreement, I 
believe, in regard to the fact that all these individuals lived 
to be very old. 



"^ 

X 



CHAPTER III. 

EVIL CONSEQUENCES THAT MAY BE APPREHENDED FROM OVER- 
TASKING THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. RULES PROPER TO 

BE OBSERVED BY STUDIOUS MEN FOR THE SECURITY OF THEIR 

HEALTH. THE ABILITY TO SUSTAIN INTELLECTUAL LABORS 

VARIES IN DIFFER.ENT INDIVIDUALS, AND CONSEQUENTLY THE 
PROPORTION OF TIME THAT MAY BE SAFELY DEDICATED TO 
STUDY. 

The capabilities' of the mind, in like manner with those 
of the body, must have their limits. The powers of the brain 
may be impaired by extravagant mental, as those of the 
muscles by severe corporeal exertions. And so close are the 
sympathetic ties uniting mind and body, that whatever tends 
to injure the former, must. necessarily endanger the sound- 
ness of the latter. Hence, if the intellectual faculties are 
habitually overtasked, a train of moral and physical infirmi- 
ties may be induced, imbittering existence and shortening 
its term. 

Persons who addict themselves immoderately to intel- 
lectual labors become particularly exposed 'to affections of 
.the brain, or organ overworked- They are liable to head 



56 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

aches, and an undefinable host of nervous ailments. Inflam- 
mation, too, and a variety of organic diseases of the brain are 
not uncommon with them ; and apoplexies and palsies are 
apt to assail them as they advance in life. Whenever there 
exists a predisposition in the physical constitution to apo- 
plexy, close niental application, and, in a particular manner 
after the middle term of life, is most hazardous. 

Epilepsy is another melancholy disease of the nervous 
system, which a highly active and exalted state of the mind 
would seem to favor. Many individuals distinguished for 
their talents and mental efforts, have been the subjects of 
this pitiable malady ; as Julius Caesar, Mahomet, and Na- 
poleon ; and of learned men, Petrarch, Columna, Francis 
Rhcdi, Rousseau, and Lord Byron, are familiarly cited in- 
stances. Still, how much in these examples may be justly 
ascribed to the abstract labor of intellect, and how much to 
mental anxiety, or the undue excitement and depression of 
the moral feelings, cannot be easily determined. 

Extreme mental dejection, hypochondriasis, and even 
insanity, particularly if there be in the constitution any 
tendency to such conditions, may sometimes result from the 
cause I am considering. And, in occasional instances, under 
their intemperate exertion, the energies of the brain have 
been consumed, the light of intellect has become extinct, and 
the wretched victim, in ;i state of mental imbecility, or 
even drivelling idiocy, has been doomed to linger out a 
miserable existence within the walls of a mad-house. 

I have stated what may occur in extreme cases, from 
abuse of the intellectual powers. Still, I conceive that the 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 57 

diseases of literary men are far oftener to be imputed to in- 
cidental circumstances connected with the neglect or abuse 
of their physical and animal nature, as their sedentary 
habits, injudicious diet, inconsiderate indulgence of their 
different appetites, &c, than to their mere mental labors. 
But, as being less blameworthy, and more nattering to their 
pride of understanding, students generally prefer to charge 
their bodily infirmities upon their toils of intellect. I feel 
well satisfied that, would studious men, or those whose avo- 
cations draw especially on the energies of the brain, but 
bestow the requisite attention on the regimen of life, they 
might, as before said, enjoy as good and uniform a share of 
health as most other classes of the community. But, un- 
happily for themselves, as they sooner or later discover, the 
importance of this they do not generally sufficiently under- 
stand, or properly regard. Thus we meet not a few in the 
community, who cultivate and adorn, in the most eminent 
degree, their intellectual and moral, while they are daily in- 
fringing the laws of their physical, nature. They neglect 
their needful exercise ; they eat and drink as they ought 
not to eat and drink ; they sleep irregularly, and abuse in 
a thousand other ways the welfare of their bodies. They 
think only of the mental — the spiritual ; the gross vesture 
of flesh is beneath their consideration ; and thus, heedless 
of all admonition, do they continue in their pernicious 
course, till their retribution comes in ruined health and pre- 
mature decay. They are sinners — construe the term as 
we will — for they offend against the laws of their Maker, as 
evinced in their living organization, and thereby lessen the 
3* 



58 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

sum of their usefulnesss, and shorten the career of their 
being. We are obviously possessed of a threefold nature — 
intellectual, moral and physical ; and would we secure to 
ourselves the greatest amount of enjoyment, and raise our- 
selves to the highest attainable condition of humanity, we 
must regard, must educate and perfect it, in its threefold 
relations. 

Among the rules of health most essential to be observed 
by those whose pursuits belong more especially to the mind, 
we may, in the first place, mention temperance, both in eat- 
ing and drinking. Persons of studious and sedentary 
habits neither require, nor will they bear, the same amount 
and kind of food as those whose occupations call forth 
greater physical exertion, and produce, consequently, a more 
rapid consumption of the materials of the body. If such, 
therefore, will persist in eating and drinking like the day- 
laborer, they must look to experience indigestion, and all 
its aggravated train of miseries. Or, even should they 
escape such, the yet graver ills of excessive repletion, as in- 
flammations and congestions, will be likely to overtake 
them. 

A certain degree, at least, of regularity in respect to 
meals, is also important to be observed — the stomach, like 
erery other organ of the animal economy, being subject to 
the influence of habit ; and it is furthermore important, that 
while partaking them, tin; mind be abstracted as far as pos- 
sible from all other concerns, and interested especially in 
the agreeable Bensnal impressions it is experiencing. The 
enjoyment of our food forms one of the best of sauce3 for 
the promotion of its digestion. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 59 

Eating, furthermore, being an imperious animal duty, 
sufficient time should always be appropriated to its per- 
formance. The habit of rapid eating is exceedingly com- 
mon among studious men, and is very apt to be acquired at 
our colleges and boarding-schools — the inmates of which 
often dispatch their food more like ravenous animals than 
civilized human creatures. This most disgustingly vulgar 
practice, of gorging our food but half masticated — of hurry- 
ing through our meals as though we were just going off in 
the stage-coach, I believe to have more concern in the pro- 
duction of indigestion among us than has generally been 
suspected. We read that Diogenes meeting a boy eating 
thus greedily, gave his tutor a box on the ear ; and, also, 
that there were men at Rome who taught people to chew, 
as well as to walk. The instruction of some such teachers, 
both in reference to health and manners, might not be alto- 
gether out of place among ourselves. 

There are a class of men who, under an affectation 
of moral and intellectual refinement, assume to regard eat- 
ing as one of those base animal gratifications to which as 
little time and thought as possible should be appropriated. 
But let us remember that we yet dwell in the flesh, and can- 
not, therefore, become wholly spiritualized. Those actions 
which Nature has enjoined as necessary to our constitution, 
are fortunately — indeed the species, with its present laws, 
could not otherwise have been preserved — associated with 
enjoyment. It is the part of wisdom, therefore, not to de- 
spise, neither slavishly to pursue, the corporeal pleasures, 
but to accept of them with thankfulness, and to partake of 



60 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

them with prudence. The gratification of all our appetites 
contributes, both directly and indirectly, to health and hap- 
piness ; it is their abuse, only, that is reprehensible, and 
followed by pain and regret. Take from man his regularly 
returning social meal, and of how many sweet, domestic 
and friendly sympathies and associations, and consequently 
of how much human enjoyment, would you not deprive him ? 
There belong to our nature sensual, moral and intellectual 
wants, and it is to their wise and duly apportioned gratifi- 
cation that we owe whatever happiness existence can afford. 
Spiritualize an individual, or raise him, through the purity 
and refinement of his intellect, much above the rest of his 
species, and he would be entirely unfitted for the sphere of 
his present being. Warmed by no human sympathies, en- 
joying no human companionship, he would be alone among 
his race. Even as it is, superior and refined intellect is apt 
to look upon the ordinary pnrsuits and enjoyments of the 
would as futile, frivolous, and to become secluded and 
misanthropic. 

It is scarcely necessary, I trust, to insist on the import- 
ance to the health of intellectual men of daily exercise in 
the open air. "Without this no one whose employments are 
of a sedentary character, can expect to maintain sound 
health. The amount of exercise required will depend some- 
thing on the constitution, and much on the hind and quanti- 
ty of the food. From two to four hours of the day should 

certainly 1"' devoted to active bodily exertions. 

Many Btudents, tempted on by the inviting quietude, are 

in the habit of protracting their labors late into the hours of 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 61 

the night, and at the manifest expense of their physical 
health. The wan and sallow countenance of the student is 
almost proverbially associated with the midnight lamp. 
Few causes tend more certainly to shatter the nervous 
energies, waste the constitution, and hasten on the infirmi- 
ties of age, than deficient and irregular sleep. Thus, "to he 
a long and sound sleeper," we often find enumerated by the 
older writers among the signs of longevity. Those persons 
whose occupations, whatever may be their nature, interfere 
with their necessary and regular repose, are almost always 
observed to be pale, nervous, emaciated. Even a single 
night of watching will often drive the color from the cheek, 
the expression from the eye, and the vigor from the brain. 
Although so much of evil to mind, body, and estate, is 
ascribed to the prodigal indulgence in sleep, yet in our own 
busy and ambitious community we might reasonably doubt 
whether there is not, on the whole, more detriment from its 
deficiency than excess. And I am well satisfied that the 
human constitution would, in general, suffer less from ex- 
tending than contracting the needful term of repose. 

Constitutions will naturally differ in the amount of sleep 
they require, but most persons have to appropriate to it as 
much certainly as seven hours of the twenty-four. The 
slumbers of the forepart of the night affording, there is 
good reason to believe, most refreshment to the functions, it 
is advisable that students retire and rise seasonably, and 
accomplish, if circumstances will permit, their most arduous 
duties in the early portion of the day; for this is the time, 
if the body is in health, when the thoughts will generally be 



62 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

most clear and accurate, and the labors, therefore, most 
profitable. The fittest working hours, indeed, both for 
mind and body, would seem to be those which intervene 
between breakfast and dinner, having reference to our own 
customary hours for these meals. It is the stillness and 
seclusion of the night which have mostly rendered it so 
favorite a period for study and contemplation. 

Again, those devoted to intellectual application should 
frequently relax their minds by amusing recreation, by 
mingling in cheerful society, and joining in its rational 
diversions ; otherwise they are liable to become gloomy, 
irritable, and misanthropic, states of feeling always at war 
with our physical well-being. The dignity even of the most 
erudite and talented, would hardly suffer from occasionally 
uniting in the innocent frivolities of society, while a glad- 
dening influence would thus be imparted to the whole moral 
and physical constitution. Among the ancients it seems 
that the greatest souls did not disdain occasionally to 
unbend, and yield to the laws of their human condition. 
Thus the Catos, with all their severity of manners, found 
relaxation and enjoyment in the ordinary pleasures of life. 
And it is told of Epaminondas, that amid all his glory and 
moral greatness, lie felt it no detraction to dance, and sing, 
and play with the boys of the city. And that Scipio 
Africanus amused himself in gathering shells, and playing 
at quoits on the sea-shore with his friend Lselius. Aud 

alflO that the sage Socrates became the pupil of the captivat- 
ing Aspasia in dancing, as well as in eloquenoe, even when 

he was advanced in Life. Montaigne, after extolling the 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 63 

mighty intellect and lofty virtues of Socrates, his patience 
and forbearance under poverty, hunger, the untractableness 
of his children and the scratches of his wife, concludes by 
saying that "he never refused to play at cobnut, nor to ride 
the hobby-horse with the boys."* I do not mean to imply, 
however, that our own scholars and distinguished sages 
should dance with children, or take lessons in dancing of 
courtesans, or play at cobnut with boys, but only that they 
should relieve their mental labors by such amusements and 
recreations, such social enjojnnents as, are consistent with 
their characters and agreeable to their feelings. 

As a pure air not only serves to invigorate and sustain 
the body, but likewise to animate the mind, literary men 
should always choose for their studies, where so much of 
their time is passed, large and airy rooms. The narrow and 
confined apartments which many select for the prosecution 
of their mental labors, cannot be otherwise than prejudicial 
to health. 

Different individuals, as we should naturally conclude, 
vary materially in their capability of supporting mental ex- 
ertions. This may in some cases be referrible to habit, and 
in others to the native strength or feebleness of the consti- 
tution in general, or of the organ of thought in particular. 
To some persons mental application is always irksome ; the 
task of thinking is the most unwelcome one that can be 
imposed on them. While in others, just the reverse is 
observed ; the intellectual operations are ever accomplished 

* Essays. 



64 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

with ease and satisfaction, and to the new results of their 
studies and reflections do they owe the purest delights of 
existence. In the latter, then, the exercise of mind, being 
less arduous, and associated also with a pleasurable excite- 
ment, will be far better sustained than in the former. 
Mental occupations for which one has no taste, I scarce 
need say, are much sooner followed by fatigue and exhaus- 
tion, and are consequently more injurious, than such as 
accord with the inclinations. 

I may here remark, though it must be sufficiently obvi- 
ous to every one, that we can form no correct estimate of 
the absolute amount of mental labor in different individuals 
from what they accomplish. For as the giant in body may 
support his three hundred weight with as little effort as the 
dwarf his one. so also may the gigantic intellect produce its 
astonishing results with the same ease that the less gifted 
mind performs its comparatively insignificant tasks. Many 
a poetaster has doubtless worked as hard to bring forth a 
volume of doggerel verses, as Newton did in the production 
of his Principia. 

In relation to the period of time that may be safely and 
profitably devoted to study, wc can lay down no rales which 
will be universal in their application. Few persons, how- 
ever, can spend advantageously, and without hazard to the 
physical health, more than seven, or. at furthest, eight hours 
of the twenty four in close mental application. As the 
brain grows weary, its capabilities must diminish, and its 

productions in consequence be comparatively feeble, whence 

they are said to Hie 11 of the lamp. Having then re 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 65 

only to the intellectual results, nothing is really gained by 
overtasking the mind. It has been truly remarked that 
" there is scarcely any book which does not sayor of painful 
composition in some part of it ; because the author has 
written when he should have rested." 



CHAPTER IV. 



TO A GREATER OR, LESS EXTENT, WITH PASSION. THOSE 

MENTAL AVOCATIONS WHICH ELICIT THE STRONGEST MORAL 
FEELINGS ARE MOST DETRIMENTAL TO HEALTH. 

The intellectual operations are seldom if ever altogether 
isolated from passion. Indeed, it is oftentimes through the 
activity of the passions that the powers of our understand- 
ing develope and perfect themselves. Even the mathemati- 
cal studies, which would seem so purely to engage the rea- 
soning powers, are not entirely exempt from all moral excite- 
ment or commotion. The mathematician may experience 
anger or regret if he encounters obstacles or difficulties in 
the solution of his problems, and joy and satisfaction under 
the opposite circumstances. ]3ut then with how many of 
our intellectual labors do not the most agitating feelings, as 
of bope and fear. envy, jealousy, anger, almost necessarily 

blend themselves I Need I instance the deep and terrible 
passions bo frequently called forth in controversies of a reli- 
gious and political character, and which have so often lighted 

the torch of the bigot, and deluged fields in blood? Where 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 67 

is the eminent statesman, who, if he be not as phlegmatic as 
a clod of earth, does not at times, even in the midst of his 
highest mental exertions, feel himself writhing under the 
most painfully conflicting emotions 1 

It will scarce he disputed that the particular motives 
which are the incentives of our mental labors must serve to 
determine their influence upon the feelings. If knowledge 
be pursued for its own sake, or with a benevolent end, its 
acquisition will generally be associated with a quiet self- 
complacency, diffusing a healthful serenity throughout the 
whole moral constitution. But when, on the other hand, the 
stimulus to its pursuit is selfish ambition or personal ag- 
grandizement, then may the most agitating and baneful pas- 
sions of our nature be engendered. 

We see, then, that it may be no easy matter to decide in 
each individual instance^ how much the intellectual opera- 
tions are immediately concerned in the production of physi- 
cal infirmities and premature decay, and how far they act 
indirectly through the emotions. It is not always to the mid- 
night lamp alone, as is so commonly supposed, that the pale 
cheek and contracted brow of the scholar are due. The am- 
bitious strife so active among literary men, and the anxious 
desire for success and popular favor, and all the consequent 
moral agitation and suffering, as of envy, jealousy, anxiety, 
deferred or defeated hopes, oftentimes do more, far more, to 
break down the constitution, than would even the most 
arduous mental efforts in their unblended operation. 

The literary labors of Sir Walter Scott, although so per- 
severing, do not seem, until aided by other causes, to have 



68 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

been productive of any injury to his health, which is to be 
ascribed in a great measure to his peculiarly happy temper- 
ament. He appears through his whole career to have en- 
joyed a remarkable exemption from all those painfully agi- 
tating feelings which so wear upon the mind and body of the 
larger proportion of authors ; to have displayed little of that 
keen sensibility so proverbially characteristic of the aspirants 
for literary fame. Hence his mental efforts must have been 
attended with less anxiety, and his moral tranquillity less 
hazarded by their event than among the more sensitive tribe 
of writers. It may furthermore be added that he was con- 
stant in his habits of exercise in the open air. But in the 
latter part of his life, when the brightness of his fortune had 
become overcast by the clouds of adversity ; when his 
mental tasks were mingled with anxiety and broke in upon 
his needful rest, and his regular and salutary exercise, then 
did his physical health begin to yield, and fatal disease of 
the brain soon closed the last and most painfully tragic 
scene of his conspicuous and worthy career. 

Those mental employments then, as it will now be 
inferred, which have the least tendency to call forth the 
painful and agitating emotions, will always be found most 
consonant to health. I may mention, in illustration, those 
tranquil and innocent studies which are embraced under the 
various departments of natural history, as botany, horticul- 
ture, zoology, &0., studies which rarely tail to bring content 

and Ben nit;, to the mind, t<» soften asperities of feeling, and 
to render healthier, happier, and better, those who have be- 
come devoted to them. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 69 

Studies that exercise especially the reasoning faculties, 
whose aim is truth, and which are attended with positive 
and satisfactory results, inasmuch as they afford the most 
calm and permanent gratification, and favor, therefore, that 
harmony between the moral and physical nature which has 
"been deemed so important to health and longevity, are most 
safe and salutary in their influence on body and mind. 
Hence it is that those engaged in the exact sciences, as the 
mathematician, the astronomer, the chemist, usually enjoy 
better health, firmer nerves, more uniform moral tranquillity, 
and, other things equal, I believe a longer term of existence 
than those whose pursuits are more connected with the im- 
agination, as the poet, or writer of fictitious narrative. In 
these latter the deep and varying passions are more fre- 
quently awakened ; a morbid sensibility is encouraged, and 
the flame of life, exposed to such continual and unnatural 
excitement, must burn more unequally and waste more ra- 
pidly. Who does not rise with more self-satisfaction, with a 
more calm, equable and healthful condition of the mind, 
from studies which exercise and instruct the understanding, 
than from the morbidly exciting works of romantic fiction ? 
Poetry and romance, then, ever as they wander from the 
standard of nature, must become the more prejudicial in their 
effects on the moral and physical constitution. To illustrate 
this remark I need but refer to the writings of Lord Byron 
and Sir Walter Scott. 

Reason, the noblest gift of our nature, should always 
reign superior ; should always hold in proper subjection the 
subordinate faculties. Whenever this rightful order in the 



70 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

mental economy is subverted, whenever reason becomes en- 
slaved to the fancy, and a sickly sentimentality of feeling 
usurps the place of the bold impressions of truth and reality, 
the vigor of the nerves decays, health languishes, and life is 
most commonly abbreviated. 

"It is well known," says Dr. Pinel, "that certain profes- 
sions conduce more than others to insanity, which are chiefly 
those in which the imagination is unceasingly or ardently en- 
gaged." He informs us that on consulting the registers of 
Bicetre, he found many priests and monks, as well as country 
people, who had been terrified into insanity by the anticipa- 
tion of hell torments ; also many artists, painters, sculptors, 
and musicians ; some poets transported into madness by 
their own productions, and a great many advocates and 
attorneys. But no instances of persons whose professions 
require the habitual exercise of the judging faculty ; — not 
one naturalist, nor a physician, nor a chemist, nor a geome- 
trician. 

Mr. Madden, an English writer, drew up tables to prove 
the influence of different studies on the longevity of authors 
and artists. At the head of these we find the natural phi- 
losophers with an average term of existence of seventy-five 
years. At the foot are the poets, who average but fifty- 
seven years, or eighteen less than those engaged in the natu- 
ral sciences.* It must be admitted, however, that these 
data of Mr. Madden are exposed to so many sources of er- 
ror that no great reliance can be placed upon the inferences 
drawn from them. 

* Infirmities of Genius. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 71 

In conclusion of the present chapter, let me remark, what 
has been before implied, that all those mental avocations 
which are founded in* benevolence, or whose end and aim are 
the good of mankind, being from their very nature associated 
witl/agreeable moral excitement, and but little mingled with 
the evil feelings of the heart, as envy, jealousy, hatred, must 
necessarily diffuse a kindly influence throughout the consti- 
stutiori. 



CHAPTER V. 

MENTAL LABORS ARE LESS FATIGUING AND INJURIOUS WHEN 
DIVERSIFIED THAN WHEN CONFINED TO SOME ONE PARTICU- 
LAR SUBJECT. A TEMPERATE EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT, 

UNITED WITH HABITUAL MUSCULAR ACTIVITY, IS MOST FA- 
VORABLE TO THE GENERAL HEALTH OF THE SYSTEM AND 
TO LONGEVITY. INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES VARIOUSLY AF- 
FECTED BY DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF THE BODILY ORGANS 
AND FUNCTIONS. _ 

Mental labors judiciously varied will, in general, be tar bet- 
ter sustained than those of a more uniform or concentrated 
character. As the same physical effort soon tires and ex- 
hausts the muscles concerned in it, so likewise will the same 
mental exertion produce a corresponding effect on the facul- 
ties it particularly engages. Hence the manifest relief we 
experience in changing our intellectual occupations — just, 
indeed, as we do in shifting our postures, or our exercises. 

Clo.su and undivided attention' to any one object of real 
or fancied moment is apt to be followed, earlier or later, ac- 
cording to incidental circumstances, by pains and dizziness 
of the bead, palpitations and irregularities of the heart's ac- 
tion, general lassitude and prostration of strength, dimin- 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 73 

islied appetite, impaired digestion, emaciation, a contracted, 
sallow, care-worn countenance, and a whitening and falling 
out of the hairs. Or the mind, too ardently devoted to a 
particular theme, too long and intently engrossed by some 
solitary and absorbing subject, may at last, as Dr. Johnson 
has so well illustrated in the history of his astronomer, lose 
all power of seeing it aright, or in other words, become actu- 
ally insane in relation to it. The common saying, therefore, 
that one may tell a lie till he believes it, is not without 
foundation in truth. Hence extravagant enthusiasm comes 
hard upon the confines of, and sometimes actually passes 
into insanity. And there is no community which is not 
more or less infested with wild bigots, zealots, those 
swayed by a single idea, and hardly to be distinguished from 
monomaniacs, who for their own sakes, and that of the com- 
munity, ought to be subjected to the discipline of a mad- 
house. 

The improvement in the countenance and general aspect 
of the body, and in the healthful vigor of all the functions, 
consequent to a relaxation from concentrated mental appli- 
cation, there are few but must have experienced in them- 
selves, or remarked in others. 

Change would seem almost essential to our health and 
happiness. 

" Look abroad through Nature's range, 
Nature's mighty law is change." 

If subjected to like influences for long continued periods, 
they cloy and weary the senses, and we pine for novelty. 

4 



74 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The same food will after a while pail upon the taste ; the 
same scenery cease to delight the eye ; the same society lose 
its early charms, and even the voice of love will fall dull and 
unmusical on the ear. Healthful and agreeable excitement 
in most of our organs is, to a certain extent, dependent on 
variations in their stimuli, and the brain forms no exception 
to this rule. It is sameness that begets ennui, or that pain- 
ful weariness of existence so often witnessed among man- 
kind, urging them sometimes even to self-destruction as a 
relief. 

" II est done de la nature du plaisir et de la peine de se 
detruire d'eux-memes, de cesser d'etre parce qu'ils ont etc. 
L'art de prolonger la dure'e de nos jouissances consiste a en 

varier les causes Voyez cet honime que l'ennui 

devore aujourd'hui, a cote de celle pres de qui les heures 
fuyaient jadis comine l'cclair: il serait heureux s'il ne l'avait 
point etc,' ou s'il pouvait oublier qu'il le fut autrefois."* 

The older writers used particularly to recommend the 
varying of the habits and scenes of life, as of eating, drink- 
ing, exercising, thinking ; " to be sometimes in the country, 
sometimes in the town ; to go to sea, to hunt," etc. Some 
of the ancient medical sages even went so far as x to advise, 
for the sake of change, an occasional 'slight excess. "To 
indulge a little, now and then, by eating and drinking more 
plentifully than iisuftl." Most persona will find their ac- 
count, both M.- respects health and happiness, in occasionally 
quitting old scenes and duties, and interrupting their estab- 

li;it. Recherchea Pbysiologiquea sur la Vie ft la Mort. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 75 

lished habits and associations, since by so doing they will 
return to them with refreshed powers, and renewed suscep- 
tibilities of enjoyment. The law of mutation is stamped 
upon, and seems necessary to the harmony and perfection of 
all the works of creation, and its operation may be equally 
needful to elicit and sustain the healthful action of our 
own bodily and mental powers. 

Although I have not been disposed to regard even severe 
mental exertions, of themselves, so common a source of phy- 
sical infirmity as is generally done, nevertheless I conceive 
a temperate exercise of the intellect, united with habitual 
muscular activity, to be most favorable to the general health 
of the system, to longevity, and, I may furthermore add, to 
the greatest sum of happiness to the individual. 

Man, however, at the present period of the world, rising 
to power and honor, not as in the earlier ages through feats 
of strength, or bodily exploits, but by the superior influence 
of his mental endowments, it is not surprising that our 
physical should so often be sacrificed to our moral nature ; 
that mind should be cultivated -to the neglect, if not at the 
expense of the body. 

Let me state in conclusion of the present chapter, that 
body and mind are so closely bound up together, that the 
slightest physical disease, particularly of the brain itself, 
may variously affect, or even destroy some or perhaps all 
the intellectual faculties. It requires but very little 
material change, but slight compression of this organ, to 
degrade the loftiest intellect below even that of the most 
stupid brute. The transcendent mind of Sir Walter Scott 



76 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

was reduced to the most melancholy state of imbecility by a 
little softening in a limited portion of the brain. The 
powerful intellect of Dean Swift sunk under the pressure of 
water upon the brain. For five years prior to his death, he 
remained speechless and idiotic, u a driveller and a show." 
But I might cite any number of instances of the most lofty 
understandings brought to a like pitiable and humiliating 
condition by some, oftentimes slight, material change in the 
brain, and sometimes of other organs but indirectly connected 
with the functions of mind. What then is this our boasted 
intellect when it takes so little a matter to turn the philos- 
opher into the fool ? The memory suffers oftentimes most 
strangely under certain physical conditions of the brain. 
The power of remembering recent events is sometimes 
destroyed, while those long past come up with unusual 
vividness before the mind. And again the reverse of this 
is true, daily occurrences being retained while those of older 
date are lost to the remembrance. Sometimes the memory 
for words, or even for a particular class of words, as nouns, 
adjectives, verbs, is destroyed. There may remain a dis- 
tinct idea of things and their relations, and also of persons, 
but their names cannot be recalled, nor understood when 
heard. Thus one thing may be called for another, and 
sometimes the individual thus affected invents a sort of 
language of his own, and always using his words in the 
same sense, it fonics to be understood by those in constant 
attendance upon him. 4 In Borne instances not only 

* A.bercrombie on the ' ! > 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 77 

language, but all knowledge that had been acquired prior 
to the invasion of the physical malady is effaced from the 
memory, so that a new education becomes necessary. 

In certain conditions, moreover, of the brain, as in 
dreams, the excitement of delirium, etc., ideas long for- 
gotten, or sensations which produced no idea at the time 
they were received, may be revived, or brought out in the 
most distinct and vivid forms. Very many extraordinary 
and almost incredible cases of this nature might be adduced. 
Thus languages long forgotten have been spoken fluently 
under such states of cerebral excitement. Dr. Carpenter 
cites a remarkable instance " in which a woman, during the de- 
lirium of fever, continually repeated sentences in a language 
unknown to those around her, which proved to be Hebrew 
and Chaldaic ; of these she stated herself, on her recovery, 
to be perfectly ignorant ; but on tracing her former history, 
it was found that, in her early life, she had lived as servant 
with a clergyman, who had been accustomed to walk up and 
down the passage, repeating or reading aloud sentences in 
these languages, which she must have retained in her 
memory unconsciously to herself."* 

Diseases of other organs beside the brain exercise a 
remarkable influence upon the powers of the understanding. 
Thus in disorders, especially of the stomach, liver, bowels, 
the memory and judgment often become very obviously 
impaired, and all mental processes are conducted with 
unusual labor and embarrassment, " He," said Dr. George 

* Human Physiology. 



78 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Ckeyne, more than a hundred years ago, " that would have 
a clear Head, must have a clean Stomach."* 

Full feeding lessens the clearness and activity of the 
intellectual faculties. An intellectual process which we 
could carry out with ease before, we might find very difficult 
and embarrassing after dinner. Hence gluttonous men, 
those who live under the dominion of their stomachs, are 
very apt to be stupid in their intellects. 

" Fat paunches have lean pates ; and dainty bits 
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the \vits."t 

That the particular nature of our food, as well as its 
quantity, may also exercise an important influence upon the 
strength and character of the understanding will, I think, 
hardly be disputed. But this subject is altogether too wide 
for the present volume. 

* On Health ^nd long Life. t Love's Labor Lost. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EVILS TO BE APPREHENDED FROM THE INORDINATE EXERCISE 
OF THE INTELLECT IN EARLY YEARS. 

Premature and forced exertions of the mental faculties 
v must always be at the risk of the physical constitution. 
I Parents, urged on, by a mistaken ambition for their intel- 
lectual progress, are extremely apt to overtask the minds of 
their offspring, and thus may often not only defeat their 
own aims, but prepare the foundation of bodily infirmity, 
and early decay. Such a course is, moreover, repugnant to 
the plainest dictates of Nature, to be read in the instinctive 
propensities of the young, which urge so imperiously to 
physical action. 

Exercise, in early existence especially, is a natural 
want, being then essential to train the muscles to their re- 
quisite functions, and to insure to the frame its full develop- 
ment and just proportions So strong, indeed, is this ten- 
dency to motion, that few punishments are more grievous to 
childhood, than such as impose restraints upon it. The 
young, in truth, of all animals of the higher orders, equally 
display this necessary propensity. Liberate the calf or the 



80 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

lamb from his confinement, and what a variety of muscular 
contractions will he not immediately exhibit in his active 
and happy gambols ? He is herein but discovering the in- 
stincts of his nature, just as much as while cropping the 
grass and herbage. In tasking, therefore, the functions of 
the brain, and restraining, consequently, those of the mus- 
cles, in early life, we act in contravention to the most obvi- 
ous laws of the animal constitution. 

I do not mean that the powers of the mind are to be 
absolutely neglected at this period. They are certainly to 
be unfolded, but then prudently, and in just correspond- 
ence only with the development of the physical organization. 
To look for ripeness of intellect from the soft, delicate, and 
immature brain of childhood, is as unreasonable as it would 
be to expect our trees to yield us fruit while their roots 
were unconfirmed, and their trunks and branches succulent. 
" Nature," as was said by Rousseau, " intended that children 
should be children before they arc men ; and if we attempt 
to pervert this order, we shall produce early fruit, which 
will have neither maturity nor savor, and which soon 
spoils ; we shall have young learned men, and old children. 
Infancy has an order of seeing, thinking, and feeling, which 
is proper to it. Nothing is more foolish than to wish to 
make children substitute ours for theirs ; and I would as 
soon require a child to be five feet high, as to require judg- 
ment at ten years of age."* 

In all the examples on record, I believe, in which chil- 

* Cited by Tourtelle. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 81 

drenhave reached maturity much earlier than in the common 
course of nature — as at six or eight years — old age and de- 
cay have been correspondently premature. In Dr. Millin- 
gen's Curiosities of Medical Experience, is cited " an ac- 
count of a surprising boy, who was born at Willingham, near 
Cambridge, and upon whom the following epitaph was writ- 
ten : — l Stop, traveller, and wondering, know, here buried lie 
the remains of Thomas, son of Thomas and Margaret Hall, 
who, not one year old, had the signs of manhood ; at three, 
was almost four feet high, endued with uncommon strength, 
a just proportion of parts, and a stupendous voice ; before 
six, he died, as it were, at an advanced age.' " According 
to the surgeon who viewed him after death, the corpse pre- 
sented every appearance of decrepit old age. 

But, setting aside the hazard to the physical constitu- 
tion, nothing is in reality gained, as respects the intellect, 
by such artificial forcing. On the contrary, the energies of 
the mind being thus prematurely exhausted, it seldom hap- 
pens that these infant prodigies, which raise such proud 
hopes in the breasts of parents and friends, display even 
mental mediocrity in their riper years. In some cases in- 
sanity, or even idiocy, has been the melancholy result of 
such unnatural exertion of the organ of thought, while yet 
delicate and unconfirmed. 

Furthermore, those even whose minds naturally, or inde- 
pendent of education, exhibit an unusual precociousness, 
rarely fulfil the expectations they awaken — either falling the 
victims of untimely decay, — 

" So wise so young, do ne'er live long," — 
4* 



82 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

or else, reaching early the limit of their powers, they stop 
short in their bright career, and thus, in adult age, take a 
rank very inferior to those whose faculties were more tardy 
in unfolding, and whose early years were, consequently, less 
flattering. That mind will be likely to attain the greatest 
perfection, whose powers are disclosed gradually, and in 
due correspondence with the advancement of the other func- 
tions of the constitution. It is a familiar fact, that trees 
are exhausted by artificially forcing their fruit ; and, like- 
wise, that those vegetables which are slow in yielding their 
fruit, are generally stronger and more lasting than such as 
arrive earlier at maturity. 

" We have frequently seen, in early age," observes a 
French writer on health, " prodigies of memory, and even 
of erudition, who were, at the age of fifteen or twenty, im- 
becile, and who have continued so through life. We have 
seen other children, whose early studies have so enfeebled 
them, that their miserable career has terminated with the most 
distressing diseases, at a period at which they should only 
have commenced their studies." * 

* Tourtelle. 



CHAPTER VII. 

INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS, CONCLUDED. A FEW GENERAL 

SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
—SEVERE INTELLECTUAL EXERTIONS ARE ALWAYS HAZARD- 

- OUS IN OLD AGE. 

When we consider the injudicious management of child- 
hood, physical, moral- and intellectual, so common in the 
community, through the fond indulgence, ignorance, or 
wickedness of parents, and all the future ills to flesh and 
spirit that must result therefrom, we have almost reason, 
like the Thracians, to weep at the birth of a child, 

In Sparta, while governed by the laws of Lycurgus, 
education was wholly under the control of the state ; but 
its direction was not assumed until the age of seven. Up 
to this time, children remained with their parents, who 
placed little or no restraint upon their natural actions. 
Afterwards they were enrolled in companies, under the su- 
perintendence of governors appointed by the public, and 
were subjected to a strict and regular course of physical, 
moral and intellectual culture. Lycurgus then, who, as 
Plutarch says, " resolved the whole business of legislation 



84 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

into the bringing up of youth," appears to have fixed, upon 
the age of seven as the proper one to begin the systematic 
education. 

During the first years of existence, the brain, probably 
from its physical condition, is inadequate to the task of re- 
flection, or to the accomplishment of the higher intellectual 
functions. It would appear — if I may indulge for a moment 
in theory — that the vital forces are now especially required 
by the system at large to maintain its necessary develop- 
ment. If, therefore, they are too prodigally expended" on 
the intellect, or unequally diverted to the brain, it must be 
at the cost of the other functions and organs. At any rate, 
under such circumstances, the growth is generally retarded, 
the muscular system but imperfectly developed, and the 
body continues spare and devoid of its fair proportions. 
The complexion will, moreover, be pale and sickly, the circu- 
lation and digestion feeble, and nervous affections, scrofula, 
or other infirmities of the flesh, are likely to supervene, 
overburdening existence, and shortening its term. 

But little bodily restraint, therefore, certainly for the 
first five or six years of their life, should be imposed upon 
children. Long and irksome confinement to the sitting, or 
indeed to any one position, and especially in close rooms, 
cannot but be inimical to the just and healthful develop- 
ment of their physical constitution. On a general princi- 
ple, too, it is hotter that they be allowed to choose their 

own muscular actions—to run. jump, frolic, and use their 
limbs according to their inclinations, or, in other words, as 

nature dictates, than be subjected to any artificial system of 
exercise. 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 85 

Let it not be inferred, however, that the mind is to be neg- 
lected, or to receive no regard during the term mentioned ; 
all contended for is, that its systematic education be not en- 
tered upon ; that no tasks demanding confinement and 
fixed attention be imposed upon it. Light instructions, 
adapted to the capacities, and particularly such as can be 
associated with amusement and exercise, may be advanta- 
geously imparted, even on the earliest development of the 
mental faculties. And then the moral education, as I shall 
hereafter show, can scarce have too early a beginning. 

( Whenever a precocity of intellect is displayed, or a dis- 
position to thinking and learning in advance of the years, 
and tb the neglect of the usual and salutary habits of early 
life, it should be restrained rather than encouraged, since it 
is far; more desirable that children grow up to be sound and 
healthy men/ than as premature, sickly, and short-lived in- 
tellectual monster's;, * 

In the first period of our being, the perceptive faculties, 
and the memory for words, are, more especially, to be called 
into action. That such is in accordance with the ordina. 
tions of nature, the earliest habits and propensities of 
children clearly reveal to us. While awake, they are con- 
stantly, and almost as it were without an effort, learning the 
sensible qualities of external bodies, and the symbolical 
sounds by which they are indicated, and thus daily collect- 
ing the raw materials of knowledge, to be wrought into vari- 
ous new and wonderful intellectual forms, as the brain and 
reflective faculties advance to maturity. 

In the primary instructions then of children, such 



86 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

knowledge only is to be imparted, for the acquisition of 
which they evince a natural aptitude. We observe them, 
for example, catching with interest, repeating, and remem- 
bering new words ; delighted with, and soon imitating, 
harmonious sounds ; pleased with pictures, and attempting 
rude copies of them. Hence, beside language, music and 
drawing might not improperly be introduced into the early 
systematic education. The analogy here between the in- 
fancy of society, and that of the individual, cannot fail to 
strike us. Barbarous people, like children, are particularly 
impressed by the sensible qualities of objects, and for the 
expression of which, and their own feelings, they have an 
imperfect language. They possess, likewise, a rude har- 
mony, painting and sculpture ; but no science, no philoso- 
phy ; scarce any thing to intimate the progress of the re- 
flective powers, or the maturity of the species. 

From what has been remarked it will be readily seen 
that paintings and drawings, appealing as they do directly 
to the senses and memory, must be especially useful as a 
means of conveying elementary knowledge to childhood. In 
natural history, for example, a goo'd deal of rudimental in- 
struction may in this way be communicated even in very 
early Life. 

As the mind and body ripen, those studies are to be en- 
tered upon iii which the reasoning faculties are in a special 
manner engaged; as the science of numbers, intellectual, 

moral, and the various other depart incuts of philosophy. 

The period when the more purely intellectual education 
ought to be commenced cannot, of course, be precisely fixed, 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 87 

for the reason that no two minds will be likely to mature in 
exact correspondence with each other. It is questionable, 
however, if the more strictly philosophical sciences can be 
generally prosecuted to much advantage before the sixteenth 
or seventeenth year. 

Although the mind as it becomes more developed may 
be submitted to a stricter discipline than at first, yet at no 
period of the scholastic education is it to be rigorously 
tasked ; but agreeable recreations and active exercises should 
frequently alternate with the labors of study, thus insuring 
a sound body as well as an enlightened mind. Plato had 
much to say on the exercises of the youth of his city, as 
their races, their games, their dances, &c, and seems to have 
regarded these as of most important consideration in the 
training of the young to the lettered sciences. That erudi- 
tion and health are each most desirable is not to be dis- 
puted ; nevertheless, to the mass of mankind — for compara- 
tively few earn their bread by the efforts of their intellect — 
a good share of the latter will be likely to conduce far more 
to their success and happiness in life, than a large and dis- 
proportionate amount of the former. 

In children of weakly constitutions, severe mental appli- 
cation is in a particular manner hazardous. In such the 
physical education is ever of paramount regard ; the future 
health — for whose absence life has no recompense — being 
closely dependent on its judicious management. The prac- 
tice, unhappily a very common one, of selecting the most 
delicate child for the scholar, is founded in error ; some pur- 
suit demanding physical action and exposure to the open 



88 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

air is here especially necessary to impart new vigor to the 
infirm body. 

In view of the physical health of the young, and the pro- 
per development of their frames, it is of the highest import- 
ance that the apartments appropriated for their instruction 
be both spacious and airy, and so planned, also, that any un- 
natural restraint on the posture of the body shall be avoided. 
Breathing the corrupted air of crowded school-rooms, and 
long confinement in them under constrained positions, is 
even at the present time, under all our improvements in 
their ventilation and construction, a not unusual source of 
bodily infirmity. Observation has convinced me that chil- 
dren suffer in their health even more than adults from a con- 
fined and impure air. 

Finally, the instructions of youth should always, as far 
as practicable, be associated with pleasure. Children ought 
to be allured and encouraged, n,ot forced and frightened to 
their mental tasks. j Instead of 

" creeping like snail 



Unwillingly to school," 

they should go to it cheerfully and merrily as to a place of 
enjoyment, and not under the terrifying apprehension of the 
rod. "A chaplet of laurel" as it has been said, "is worth a 
cart-load of birch." " How much more decent would it be," 
says Montaigne. . •■ to sec the forms on which the boys sit, 
Btrewed with flowers and green leaves, than with the bloody 
twigs of willows? I should choose to have the pictures of 
Joy and Gladness in the schools, together with Flora and 



INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 89 

the Graces, as the philosopher Speusippus had in his, that 
where their profit is, there might be their pleasure. The 
viands that are wholesome for children ought to be sweetened 
with sugar, and those that are hurtful to them made as bit- 
ter as gall." 

The conduct of education has of late certainly undergone 
a perceptible melioration ; yet it needs no great stretch of 
memory to carry us back to the time when the following re- 
marks of the author just cited on the schools of his own 
period would not have been altogether misapplied to our 
own. ,' c They are really so many cages in which youth are 
shut up as prisoners. Do but go thither just as their exer- 
cises are over, you hear nothing but the cries of children 
under the smart of correction, and the bellowing noise of 
the masters raging with passion. How can such tender, 
timorous souls be tempted to love their lesions by those ru- 
by-faced guides, with wrath in their aspects and the scourge 
in their hands ?"* The system of corporal punishment in 
schools is, as it should be, much less common than formerly; 
but whether, contrary to the opinion of such wise men as 
Solomon and Doctor Johnson, the rod should be entirely 
spared, will admit of some reasonable doubt. There are some 
children so morally obdurate, that there seems to be no other 
effectual way to act upon them than through their physical 
sensibilities. Even here flogging should be very rarely re- 
sorted to, but when it is done it should be done thoroughly. 
Nothing can have a worse effect upon a child than frequent 

* Essays. 



90 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

small floggings. The birch then, although its use is properly 
becoming very much relaxed, will not be likely, for all the 
arguments in favor of moral suasion and moral influences of 
the humane, to be wholly dispensed with. It has too many 
associations, literary, classical and other, to be lightly given 
up, or easily forgotten. We tingle at the very thought of it. 
Shenstone has immortalized it in his School Mistress. Its 
very name (Betula, from the Latin batuo to beat) recalls to 
our thoughts the use to which it has been applied from time 
out of mind. " Its twigs," says Threlkeld, as cited by Dr. 
Drummond, " are used for besoms and rods; the one for 
the cleanly housewife to sweep down the cobwebs, and the 
other for the magisterial pedagogue to drive the colt out of 
the man." 

In the last term of existence, all severe mental efforts 
become hazardous, in a special manner endangering apo- 
plexies and palsies, to which this period is so peculiarly pre- 
disposed. In extreme age. indeed, almost every sort of exer- 
tion grows irksome and difficult ; and the brain and other 
animal organs, fatigued as it were by the protracted exercise 
of life, incline to rest, the condition to which they are so fast 
approaching. Vitality, now feeble and nearly expended, the 
most prudent economy is demanded to preserve it to its 
utmost limits. Both mind and body, therefore, should be 
Suffered to repose from all the cares, and anxieties, and 

labors of existence, that they may glide easily and gradually 
into their final sleep. 



PART SECOND 



PASSIONS 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The mind, equally with the body, is the subject of numer- 
ous feelings, pleasurable and painful, and which, according 
as they are mild or intense, receive the name of affections or 
passions. 

The term passion comes from the Greek verb iraayw^ 
pascho, and the Latin patior, each meaning to suffer, or to 
be acted upon, or affected either pleasantly or painfully. In 
its literal and primitive sense, then, it imports all mental 
feelings, without respect to their degree, although in com- 
mon usage it denotes only their deeper shades ; the word 
affection being employed to express those of a more gentle 
character. Still, a division of this sort must be in a great 
. measure arbitrary, for as different degrees only of moral 
feeling are implied by affection and passion, it is clear that 
no definite point can be established at which the former will 
be just exalted into the latter, or the latter just reduced 
to the former. In truth, the literal signification of the term 
affection answers precisely to that of passion. 



94 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Some have attempted to make a distinction between pas- 
sion and emotion, using the former as expressive of passive 1 
ness, or the simple feeling immediately resulting from the 
moral impulse ; and the latter to indicate the visible effects, 
or the commotion manifested in the frame. But such a 
distinction, certainly in a physiological and pathological ex- 
amination of the passions, will seldom be found practicable, 
since the feeling and physical phenomena are oftentimes so 
closely associated as to appear to be but the simultaneous 
effects of the primary exciting cause, and both, therefore, to 
belong essentially to the constitution of the passion in which 
they are displayed. 

In the ensuing pages, then, the word passion will be 
employed as a general expression for moral feeling, and its 
concomitant physical effects, and it will therefore compre- 
hend, and be used synonymously with both affections and 
emotions, its degree being denoted, when necessary, by the 
adjunction of an adjective. I may observe, however, that it 
is only the more exaggerated feelings, or what all agree in 
classing as passions, that put in hazard the physical health, 
in more particular relation to which we have to consider 
them. 

As the design of the present volume calls for no detailed 
metaphysical disquisition on the passions, our classification 
of them will be very general and simple. We shall consi- 
der them under three principal heads, viz.: pleasurable, 
painful, and mixed, or th086 in which pain and pleasure are 
more or less obviously associated. Not that I regard this 
as an unobjectionable division. Like all others, it is in a 



PASSIONS. 95 

measure artificial, yet it seems to us to Ibe the one which 
will best subserve the grand object of our treatise. The line 
especially befween the two first and last classes, cannot in 
every instance be nicely defined ; for the passions ranked 
as pleasurable are seldom wholly pure or unmingled with 
pain. y Thus the happiest love is rarely clear from all pangs 
of jealousy, or the brightest hope from all sufferings of ap- 
prehension ; and, as though it were preordained that no 
human enjoyment should be complete, even when at the sum- 
mit of our wishes, and under the full gratification of our 
most ardent passions, fears and forebodings of change will 
almost always sully the purity of our happiness. 

The same is in like manner true of the painful passions. 
Rare indeed is it that we find them wholly unmitigated by 
those which are pleasurable. Some faint beams of hope 
will generally penetrate even the deepest moral gloom. It 
is questionable, then, whether any of the passions, could 
they be perfectly analyzed, would be found absolutely free 
from all mixture of their opposite. 

A large proportion of the painful passions experienced in 
society, are the offspring of such as are pleasurable. We 
suffer, because we have enjoyed. Our present state is 
darkened by contrasting it with the brighter past. Thus 
does our happiness frequently depend much less on what 
we are than on what we have been. The humble peasant in 
his lowly cot may enjoy as much felicity as the noble in his 
lordly palace ; but reduce the latter to the condition of the 
former, and he becomes overwhelmed with misery. Dimin- 
ish the wealth of the rich man to what he would once have 



96 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

regarded as abundance, and wretchedness, sometimes even 
despair, may be the melancholy consequence. Often then 
might we be happy had we never been so, or could we bury 
in oblivion all remembrance of the past. 

The reverse likewise holds true ; the pleasurable pas- 
sions deriving their existence from, or becoming greatly en- 
hanced by, those which are painful. Few, probably, have re- 
flected how large a share of human misery and human happi- 
ness derives its existence from contrasts. As we suffer because 
we have enjoyed, so also do we enjoy because we have suf- 
fered. Indeed, under our present constitution, the suffer- 
ings would seem almost as necessary to the enjoyments of 
life, as are the toils and fatigues of the day to the balmy 
slumbers of night. 

Knowledge, too, or the enlargement of our ideas, in 
opening to us new fields of desire, and causing new com- 
parisons with our present condition, becomes a frequent 
source of discontent, and the various painful passions of 
which it is the parent. 



CHAPTER IX. 

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EVILS AND ADVANTAGES OP THE 

PASSIONS. THE PHYSICIAN SHOULD INVESTIGATE THE 

MORAL AS WELL AS THE PHYSICAL CAUSES OF DISEASE. 

INDIVIDUALS, FROM TEMPERAMENT, EDUCATION, AND VARI- 
OUS INCIDENTAL CIRCUMSTANCES, DIFFER VERY STRIKINGLY 
IN THE FORCE AND CHARACTER OF THEIR PASSIONS. 

The agency of the passions in the production of disease, 
especially in the advanced stages of civilisation, when men's 
relations are intimate, and their interests clash, and their 
nervous susceptibilities are exalted, can scarce be adequate- 
ly appreciated, i It is doubtless to this more intense and 
multiplied action of the passions, in union sometimes with 
the abuse of the intellectual powers, that we are mainly to 
attribute the greater frequency of diseases of the heart and 
brain in the cultivated, than in the ruder states of society. 
Few, probably, even suspect the amount of bodily infirmity 
and disease among mankind resulting from moral causes — 
how often the frame wastes, and premature decay comes 
on, under the corroding influence of some painful passion. 

It has seemed to me that the medical profession, in 
seeking for the remote occasions of disease, are too apt to 
5 



98 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

neglect those existing in the mind. Thus does it oftentimes 
happen that, while the physician is imputing the infirmities 
of his patient to all their most familiar causes, as had diet, 
impure air, want of exercise, etc., it is in reality some un- 
happy and unrevealed passion which is preying on the 
springs of life. A knowledge of the secret troubles of the 
sick would, in many instances, shed new light on their treat- 
ment, or save them, at any rate, from becoming the subjects, 
if not the victims, of active medicinal agents. Plato has 
been cited as saying, " The office of the physician extends 
equally to the purification of mind and body ; to neglect the 
one, is to expose the other to evident peril. It is not only 
the body that, by its sound constitution, strengthens the 
soul; but the well-regulated soul, by its authoritative 
power, maintains the body in perfect health." 

In delicate and sensitive constitutions, the operation of 
the painful passions is ever attended with the utmost dan- 
ger ; and, should there exist a predisposition to any par- 
ticular form of disease, as consumption, or insanity, for ex. 
ample, it will generally be called into action under their 
strong and continued influence, as I purpose to illustrate 
under the head of particular passions. It is probably true, 
as was said by Zimmerman, that, " In general, men of a 
powerful imagination suffer the most from violent sallies of 
the soul ; and they who have more of reason than imagina- 
tion, suffer most from the slower movements of the mind. 
Very indolent or stupid people, in general, suffer the least 
from the passions ; but they who unite an enlightened 
reason to a lively and reflecting genius, are the most 



PASSIONS. 99 

agitated by them." * The same view was expressed by Dr. 
G-eorge Cheyne, and from whom Zimmerman copied it. f 

The passions, however, although so greatly abused, and 
the occasion of so large a proportion of the ills we are 
doomed to suffer, yet when properly trained, and brought 
under due subjection to the reasoning powers, are the 
source of all that is great and good in man's nature, and 
contribute in a thousand ways, both directly and indirectly, 
to health and happiness. Intellect, without their quicken- 
ing influence, even could it exist at all, would be but a dull 
and dreary waste. The soul would have no impulse to 
arouse it from its senseless apathy. They are the sunbeams 
which light and cheer our mental atmosphere. The great- 
est achievements are always accomplished by those of strong 
passions, but with a corresponding development of the supe- 
rior faculties to regulate and control them. Sluggish feel- 
ings can never be parents to high and generous resolves. 
It belongs to us then to govern and direct to their proper 
ends, through the force of reason and the will, the passions 
which nature has implanted in our breasts. They cannot, 
nor is it desirable that they should be extirpated. 

" When Reason, like the skilful charioteer, 
Can break the fiery passions to the bit, 
And, spite of their licentious sallies, keep 
The radiant track of glory ; passions, then, 
Are aids and ornaments. Triumphant Reason, 
Firm in her seat and swift in her career, 

* On Experience in Physic. 

t Essay on Health and Long Life. 



100 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Enjoys their violence ; and, smiling, thanks 
Their formidable flame for high renown."* 

Mankind, owing to original differences of constitution 
or temperament, vary remarkably in the ardency of their 
feelings. Indeed, the external physical characters will 
oftentimes pretty clearly indicate the native vivacity and 
force of the passions. Thus, who would not at once distin- 
guish, even by the complexion, the sanguine, or warm and 
excitable, from the phlegmatic, or cold and passionless ? 
With acute moral, we almost, if not always have associated 
corresponding physical sensibilities. Hence, if slight causes 
affect the mind, so likewise will they the body ; or, as it has 
been said, " he who suffers extremely from a slight wound, 
will suffer equally from a disagreeable idea." 

Incidental circumstances operating upon the constitu- 
tion, will likewise influence the activity and strength of the 
passions. Hence it is that the inhabitants of tropical coun- 
tries are more apt to be hasty and violent in their feelings, 
to be agitated by more vivid emotions, and consequently to 
become enslaved to their sensual and animal nature, than 
those who dwell in colder climes. The unspiritual- or carnal 
heaven of the Mahomedan is but a semblance of the sensual 
feelings inspired by his own voluptuous climate. Indo- 
lence and free living have also the effect to aggravate, and 
activity and temperance to weaken the operation of the 
passions ; whence there arc lew better antidotes to their 
ungovernable violence than .simple food and drink, and 

• Y( 



PASSIONS.' 101 

bodily labor. Fasting has from time immemorial been ob- 
served as a religious rite to mortify the flesh and spirit, and 
subdue inordinate passions. Fasting and prayer are espe- 
cially urged in our own religion as a security against 
temptation, or our immoderate and wicked desires. 

In some persons the animal or baser nature would 
appear constitutionally to predominate, the passions readily 
breaking from the control of reason and the will, and bring- 
ing sorrow, shame, and disease upon the unhappy individual. 
In others the contrary is true ; the intellectual nature hold- 
ing the supremacy, and ever keeping the feelings under a 
just restraint] and truly fortunate are they, 

" Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled." 

Some, again, appear naturally impressed by the good, 
and others by the evil passions. We meet individuals, 
rarely, it is true, yet we do meet such, in whom the amiable 
affections maintain a distinguished pre-eminence, even from 
the earliest development of their moral nature. They ap- 
pear predestined to be good. Their placid and benevolent 
tempers would seem to be the result of a physical necessity, 
or of some happy but partial action of creative power. 
Such, however, are exceptions to the general laws of the 
species, and are consequently never perpetuated. But here 
the question will necessarily arise, Can we ascribe any vir- 
tue, any merit to such innate goodness, to such constitu- 
tional amiableness ? Virtue is essentially active. It is 
engendered, through the force of the will, out of the con- 
tentions between the generous and noble, and the base and 



102 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

despicable passions of the soul. Its very existence depends 
upon the successful struggle of our fortitude with the evil 
dispositions that are striving within us. It can only, there- 
fore, be predicated of imperfect natures. Chastity would 
be no virtue in one without carnal desires, nor clemency in 
him who was incapable of hatred or anger. The poets glo- 
rify their gods by making them war with demons. As 
the artist heightens and sets off the bright and beautiful 
colors of his canvas by the dark shades with which he 
intermingles and contrasts them, and exaggerates the 
beauty of his angels through the ugliness of his devils, 
so does nature, on her moral canvas, enhance the lustre 
and comeliness of virtue by the very shadows and deformi- 
ties which she throws into the picture. Hence, on the 
commonly received notions of the character of God, — as 
the idea has been elsewhere suggested, — although we may 
call him good, great, just, bountiful, yet we cannot call him 
virtuous ; for his goedness demands no effort, no sacrifice ; 
it belongs to his very essence ; is as natural to him as it is 
to the flower to shed its odors, or the sun its luminous 
rays. 

There is ever a contention going on in the human breast 
between the pure and wicked passions or dispositions, and 
herein consists all the machinery of demons, good and bad, 
in which the different systems of theology so abound. They 
are typical of the good and evil within us. Their wars for 
, man's salvation or destruction are moral allegories. We 
resist the devil when we cultivate and eherish the higher, 
and successfully strive against our vicious sentiments and 



PASSIONS. 103 

inclinations. The evil demon has gained us, when the baser 
or animal triumph over the better and higher powers of our 
nature. Then has our good angel forsaken us, and we are 
left to our doom, to moral and physical ruin. 

As it has already been remarked, the good passions 
greatly preponderate in some natures, so do the bad in oth- 
ers ; and we meet those who scarce ever, even from their 
childhood, manifest an amiable or generous feeling. Such 
extreme cases, however, are happily rare. Generally, there 
exists in our composition, a due mixture of the good and evil 
dispositions. " Our virtues would be proud, if our faults 
whipped them not ; and our crimes would despair, if they 
were not cherished by our virtues." 

Finally, there are those, who from early existence are 
marked by the predominance of some particular passion, as 
fear, anger, or ambition ; that is, they are constitutionally 
timorous, irascible, or aspiring in their tempers. Educa- 
tion, however, may do much, very much, in repressing pas- 
sions originally in excess, and developing such as are defi- 
cient ; and herein consists moral culture, so vitally essential 
both to our health and happiness. Need I say, then, how 
much we must be the creatures of constitution and circum- 
stance ? how much of what we are we must owe to our native 
organization and predispositions, and those resistless influ- 
ences which, in the necessary current of events, are brought 
to act upon us 1 

I am aware that views like the preceding will be objected 
to by some, as inconsistent with the freedom of our will, or 
as tending to the doctrine of necessity, of which many ap- 



104 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

pear to entertain such needless dread. That we belong to 
some vast system, the grand purpose of which is hidden 
from human intelligence, will scarce be gainsaid ; and that 
our every volition and action may be but infinitesimal and 
necessary links in the mighty and complicated chain of this 
great and unsearchable system, it is not irrational to believe. 
But as I pledged myself in the outset to shun all abstract 
speculations, I will leave this perplexed subject of fatalism 
with the remark only that there was true philosophy in that 
ancient mariner, who, being caught in a great storm at sea, 
exclaimed thus to Neptune : — " Grod, if it is thy will, I 
shall be saved ! and if it is thy will, I shall be destroyed ! 
but I'll still steer my rudder true." 



CHAPTEE X. 



THE PASSIONS BECOME GREATLY MULTIPLIED AND MODIFIED IN 
CIVILIZED LIFE. THE EFFECT OF THE PASSIONS IS PARTICU- 
LARLY MANIFESTED LN THE VITAL FUNCTIONS, AS IN THE 

CIRCULATION, DIGESTION, SECRETIONS, ETC. CERTAIN 

STATES OF THESE FUNCTIONS SERVE IN LIKE MANNER TO 

AWAKEN THE DIFFERENT PASSIONS. MORAL INFIRMITIES OF 

MEN OF GENIUS OFTEN DUE TO THOSE OF A PHYSICAL CHAR- 
ACTER. ACTION AND REACTION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY. 



The passions have become so multiplied and modified 
through our social wants and relations, that it would be in 
vain to attempt a precise and satisfactory philosophical clas- 
sification of them. The very same passion is often differ- 
ently designated according to its intenseness, or as it is 
transient or enduring in its character ; as fear and terror ; 
hatred, anger, rage ; sorrow, melancholy, despair. And 
then, again, many of the passions are so complex in their 
nature, or involve such a variety of feelings, that it becomes 
a matter of no little perplexity to decide on the particular 
denomination to which they rightfully belong. Could each 
one, however, be subjected to an accurate analysis, or traced 
up to its primal elements, they would probably all be redu- 
5* 



106 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

cible to a few simple ones, grounded on our saving instincts, 
and consequently having a direct or indirect relation to the 
preservation of the individual, or the perpetuation of the 
species. Like our organic structure, they would be found 
to have their original types discoverable in the lower depart- 
ments of life. Thus in the* inferior animal we may see the 
passions operating in their most simple and necessary forms, 
as exemplified in fear and anger. 

Some writers on the passions have regarded them all but 
as emanations from the principle of self-love. 

" Two principles in human nature reign, 
g Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain ; 

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul ; 
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."* 

Whether such, however, be their essential and primary 
source, is a question which, interesting as it may be in ethi- 
cal science, is nevertheless unimportant to the design of the 
present essay. Our principal purpose being to show that 
the passions founded in pleasure are, as an ordinary princi- 
ple, healthful, and those associated with pain, or in which 
pain preponderates, the reverse, the aforementioned sum- 
mary division of them, viz., into pleasurable, painful, and 
those in which pleasure and pain are obviously commingled, 
is all that will be needful. 

Let me here state the general proposition, which will be 
Sufficiently illustrated in the sequel, that the condition of 

• I' | on Alan. 



PASSIONS. 107 

our moral feelings exercises a potent influence upon our 
physical organs, while that of our physical organs influences 
in an equal manner our moral feelings. In other words, 
that mind and body necessarily participate in the weal and 
woe of each other. Thus passion has been not unaptly de- 
fined, " any emotion of the soul which affects the body, and 
is affected by it." So remarkable is this interchange of in- 
fluence between the mental feelings and bodily conditions, 
that by imitating the attitude and general expression of a 
particular passion, the sense of that passion will not unfre- 
quently be straightway produced in the mind. 

The effects of the passions are declared especially in 
those organs and functions which have been termed organic, 
or vegetative ; as in the heart and general circulation ; in 
the lungs, the stomach, the liver, the bowels, the kidneys, 
&c. Need I instance the disturbance in the circulation, 
respiration, digestion, which so immediately ensues under 
the strong operation of anger, fear, and grief? 

So sudden and sensible is the influence of the different 
emotions upon the viscera of the chest and abdomen, as to 
have deceived Bichat, and several other eminent physiologists 
into the belief that in these organs is their primary seat. 
And to the same origin, in truth, would the figurative lan- 
guage of every people, civilized or barbarous, appear to re- 
fer them. Thus, while to indicate thought or intellect the 
hand of the orator is carried to the head ; to express senti- 
ment or passion it is directed, almost as it were instinc- 
tively, to the chest, or the pit of the stomach ; and who 
would not be offended by the impropriety of the contrary? 



108 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

That the passions should be referred to the situation -where 
their physical consequences are particularly felt, is not to 
be wondered at ; still it is not true that they are primarily 
and essentially in the viscera. They must originate in 
some condition of the mind, in some peculiar mode of per- 
ception, though instantly, many times even with the swift- 
ness of thought, transmitting their influence to one or more 
of the organs mentioned. 

It has been supposed that each emotion has some spe- 
cial organ or organs on which its power is more particu- 
larly expended. That some act most obviously on the 
heart, as fear and joy; others on the respiration, as sur- 
prise ; and again others, as grief, on the digestive organs. 
M We shall find," says Dr. Bostock, " a clear indication of 
this connection in our common forms of speech, which must 
have been derived from observation and generally recog- 
nized, before they could have become incorporated with our 
language. The paleness of fear, the breathlessness of sur- 
prise, and the bowels of compassion, arc phrases sanctioned 
by the custom of different ages and nations."* That certain 
of the secretions are influenced by particular passions is a 
well known fact. Thus the tears flow in grief and other 
strong emotions. Maternal love is well known to promote 
the flow of milk. Dr. Parry relates an instance of a lady 
who, long after she had ceased to nurse, would have a se- 
cretion of milk on hearing a child ery.f Even girls, old 

* Elementary System of Physiology, 
t Elements of Patholo \ . 



PASSIONS. 109 

women, and men, are said sometimes to have secreted milk 
under a strong desire to furnish it. The idea of savory 
food stimulates the flow of saliva. 

The effects of a passion, however, as will hereafter he 
shown, are rarely limited to a single organ and function, 
hut more or less of the viscera and their functions, though 
not usually in an equal degree, are embraced within their 
influence. But even admitting it to be true that each 
emotion bears a special relation to some individual organ or 
organs, our physiological knowledge of the passions is far 
from having reached that degree of perfection which would 
enable us in every instance to detect such relation. 

It may be proper to remark here, that there exists a re- 
ciprocation of influence between the moral feelings and in- 
ternal organs — that the particular condition of the former 
may either determine, or be determined by, that of the latter. 
Indigestion, for example, is well known to be sometimes the 
consequence, and sometimes the cause, of an irritable and 
unhappy temper. A sour disposition may be either the 
occasion or result of a sour stomach. Thus, in some in- 
stances, we sweeten the stomach by neutralizing the acerbity 
of the temper, while in others, we sweeten the temper by 
neutralizing the acidity of the stomach. Who of us but 
must have felt our digestion improve under the brightening 
of our moral feelings ? And who of us but must have ex- 
perienced the brightening of our moral feelings under the 
improvement of our digestion 1 

Admitting the above remarks to be true, the reason will 
be plain why children who, through the ignorance or weak 



110 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

fondness of parents, are fed on indigestible diet, or indulged 
in improper gratifications of their appetite, other things 
being the same, require the rod so much oftener than others 
whose dietetic habits are regulated with more wisdom. An 
exclusive diet of bread and milk, united with judicious ex- 
ercise in the open air, will oftentimes prove an effectual means 
of correcting the temper of peevish and refractory children. 

"When brought into close and frequent intercourse with 
particular individuals, we cannot but remark how sensitive, 
irritable, and disputatious they are apt to become, if unfavor- 
able weather prevents for a few successive days their cus- 
tomary exercise abroad, and, more especially, if they have 
in the mean while been indulging in rich and indigestible 
food. The skin, at the same time, will look more dingy, 
and the eye less clear and bright than natural — circum- 
stances, together, going to show that transient indigestion is 
the occasional cause of such unhappy state of temper. Un- 
der the conditions mentioned, a walk of an hour or two in 
the fresh air, will, by restoring the health of digestion, not 
rarely bring about the most agreeable change in the moral 
feelings. 

The condition of the liver is also well known both to re- 
ceive an influence from, and impart an influence to, the 
temper of the mind. Thus a sallow complexion, spare body, 
and the other signs of what is termed a bilious habit, are 
proverbially associated, cither as cause or effect, with an un- 
happy disposition. I have known not a few individuals of 
unsteady tempers, in whom their amiable or unamiable fits 
were almost uniformly announced by the clearness or sal- 
lownese <>{' their complexions. 



PASSIONS. Ill 

Difficulties in other functions — as those of the uterine 
system — will likewise often cause a waywardness of temper, 
rendering the disposition morose and quarrelsome, or, it may 
be, gloomy and dejected. And the disturbance of the moral 
feelings, under the action of such physical causes, is some- 
times to such extent as to constitute moral insanity, and 
more especially in those who have naturally weak resolutions, 
or but little strength of will, or have never been educated to 
a proper self-control. Shakspeare has said — 

" 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus." 

And this is true in a physical, equally as in a moral sense. 
External things take their hue very much from our different 
physical conditions. 

" An hypochondriacal man," says Zimmerman, " whose 
nerves are weakened and relaxed, will consider, perhaps, the 
earth as a frightful desert. The moment he feels a transi- 
tory relief, the country around him seems to be covered with 
flowers ; he thinks that the sun shines out, and that the 
birds make the woods resound with their melody."* 

The intellectual faculties, as previously shown, do not 
escape the influence of these physical disorders. Thus, un- 
der morbid states of digestion, the memory becomes im- 
paired, the thoughts wander, or are concentrated with diffi- 
culty on any particular topic, and all mental exertions be- 
come irksome, and unsatisfactory in their results. 

* On Experience in Physic. 



112 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The well-known moral infirmities of many of the dis- 
tinguished literary geniuses of modern times, may doubtless 
have been owing, in a proportion of the cases, at least, to 
those of a bodily character. " If health and a fair day smile 
upon me," says Montaigne, " I am a good-natured man ; if 
a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and not to 
be seen." That the capricious and unhappy temper of Pope 
was due, in a great measure, to the imperfection of his con- 
stitution, and consequent disorder of his bodily functions, 
especially of digestion, will scarce, I think, be questioned. 

The poet Burns possessed all that moral sensibility, all 
the acute sensitiveness of feeling, so common in men of su- 
perior and erratic genius. He was unsteady and jealous in 
his temper, subject to great mental despondency, and, like 
many other men of poetical genius, weak in moral fortitude, 
or in_the resisting or controlling power of his will. Now 
he is well known to have suffered severely from d} 7 spepsia, 
and other bodily ailments, even before he became intem- 
perate, and which may have had no small share in the pro- 
duction of his mental infirmities. " Burns had in his con- 
stitution the peculiarities and delicacies that belong to the 
temperament of genius. He was liable, from a very early 
period of life, to that interruption in the process of di- 
gestion, which arises from deep and anxious thought, and 
which is sometimes the effect, ami sometimes the cause, of 
depression of spirits. Connected with this disorder of the 

stomach, there was a disposition to headache, affecting more 
especially the temples and eyeballs, and frequently accom- 
panied by violent and irregular movements of the heart. 



PASSIONS, 113 

Endowed by nature with great sensibility of nerves, Burns 
was, in bis corporeal as well as in bis mental system, liable 
to inordinate impressions — to fever of body as well as of 
mind." All these morbid tendencies, and associate moral 
infirmities, were greatly aggravated by the indolent, irregu- 
lar, and intemperate habits to which he surrendered himself, 
more especially in the latter part of his melancholy career, 
" In his moments of thought, he reflected with the deepest 
regret on his fatal progress — clearly foreseeing the goal to- 
wards which he was hastening, without the strength of mind 
necessary to stop, or even to slacken his course. His tem- 
per now became more irritable and gloomy; he fled from 
himself into society, often of the lowest kind. And, in such 
company, that part of the convivial scene in which wine in- 
creases sensibility and excites benevolence, was hurried over, 
to reach the succeeding part, over which uncontrolled pas- 
sion generally presided."* Genius, high mental culture and 
refinement, generally go with an excitable temperament, 
with moral and physical susceptibilities, oftentimes even 
morbidly delicate, and out of which are engendered a host 
of bodily and mental ailments and infirmities ; and all 
these frailties are encouraged and nourished by the peculiar 
habits and pursuits which genius affects. A certain degree 
of refinement of our sensibilities may be desirable, or, at any 
rate, other things being the same, must in a measure corres- 
pond with moral and intellectual culture ; but, when in ex- 
cess, is incompatible both with health and happiness, and 

* Life of Burns. By Dr. Currie. 



114 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

unfits us for all the necessary and ordinary duties of life. 
All our powers are wisely suited to our present sphere of 
existence, and " no sentient being, whose physical con- 
struction was more delicate, or whose mental powers wera 
more elevated, than those of man, could possibly live and be 
happy here." He would enjoy no society, no interchange of 
thought, no human sympathies or aspirations, for man would 
bear to him the relation of an inferior animal. Do not now 
the nice perceptions, the refined and elevated sentiments, 
the delicate nervous susceptibilities of superior genius, some- 
times approximate it to such unhappy condition ? " Is 
there, then," asks Dr. Currie, " no remedy for this inordi- 
nate sensibility % Are there no means by which the happi- 
ness of one so constituted by nature may be consulted? 
Perhaps it will be found, that regular and constant occupa- 
tion, irksome though it may at first be, is the true remedy. 
Occupation, in which the powers of the understanding arc 
exercised, will diminish the force of external impressions, 
and keep the imagination under restraint."* 

Lord Byron was remarkable for his morbid sensibility, 
and to which the weaknesses of his moral character, his ca- 
pricious, wayward, and frequently gloomy temper, his exces- 
sive and unmanly feeling in regard to his lameness which 
so tormented him, are to be in a great measure ascribed. 
And all these infirmities were doubtless aggravated by his 
too free indulgence in strong liquors. The inspirations of 
hifl muse are said to have been generally aided by his favor- 

* Life of Burns. 



PASSIONS. 115 

ite spirit gin. Byron exhibited all the infirmities, and ex- 
perienced all the sufferings which are the so frequent com- 
panions of the poetic temperament. Byron attained early 
the maturity of his genius and the summit of his fame, for 
they were based upon the powers of his imagination, which 
may be highly developed at an early age. Poetic distinction 
has often been acquired even in boyhood, while in the pursuits 
of science or philosophy, which demand the exercise more es- 
pecially of the higher or reflective faculties, true eminence 
is not often achieved before the fortieth or fiftieth year. 
The early ripeness of Byron's powers was followed by his 
correspondently early decline and death. Thus do we find 
him repining over the loss of his youth at the age of thirty- 
six. 

" My days are in the yellow leaf, 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone, 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone. 

" If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live ? 
The land of honorable death 
Is here, up to the field and give 
Away thy breath." 

He died in his thirty-seventh year, an age at which the 
man of science has generally scarce entered the lists of fame. 
Robespierre was in body meagre, sickly and bilious ; and 
who can say — for the mightiest events will oftentimes spring 
from the most insignificant causes — how much of the horrid 



116 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

cruelties of the French Revolution may not have been trace- 
able to the vicious physical constitution of this blood-thirsty 
monster? 

It is worthy of observation, that diseases of the organs of 
the abdomen are more apt to engender the gloomy and pain- 
ful passions, than such as are confined to the viscera of the 
chest. Thus it may be stated as a general truth, that the 
dyspeptic will be more uniformly despondent and irritable 
than the consumptive subject. 

It will now be obvious that a painful mental state hav- 
ing imparted an unhealthy influence to a bodily organ, a 
reaction must take place from this latter to the mind, adding 
new force to the moral suffering. And, on the other hand, 
when bodily disease excites the painful passions, they, in 
their turn, react upon and aggravate the morbid physical 
condition. 

In like manner must the happy and healthful states of 
mind and body be constantly contributing to each other. 
Thus, sound and easy digestion imparts content and good 
humor to the moral feelings, which pleasurable mental con- 
dition reacting on the digestive organs, serves to maintain 
the health of their functions. It is a familiar saying that we 
should ask for favors after dinner. Thus Mencnius, in 
alluding to the obstinacy of Coriolanus, says — 



" lie was not taken well ; he had not dined 

Therefore I'll watch him 
Till he be dieted to my request, 
And then I'll set upon him." 



PASSIONS. 117 

A knowledge of this action and reaction of mind and 
body upon each other, should instruct the physician that all 
his duties to his patients are not comprised under their 
mere physical treatment, hut that he is to soothe their sor- 
rows, calm their fears, sustain their hopes, win their confi- 
dence ; in short, pursue a vigilant system of moral manage- 
ment which, although so much neglected, will, in many cases, 
do even more good than any medicinal agents which the 
pharmacopoeia can supply. 



CHAPTER XI 

WHEREIN REAL AND IMAGINARY AFFLICTIONS DIFFER FROM 
EACH OTHER.— INCIDENTAL REMARKS NATURALLY SUG- 
GESTED BY THE MUTUAL RELATIONS AND DEPENDENCIES OF 
OUR PHYSICAL AND MORAL CONSTITUTIONS. 

Keeping in mind the facts that have been stated in the pre- 
ceding chapter, we come readily to the distinction between 
what are called real and imaginary sorrows ; terms which, 
although so familiarly used, do not always carry with them 
a sufficiently definite meaning. The former, or real afflic- 
tions, are referrible to the agency of extraneous causes, op- 
erating primarily or immediately on the moral feelings ; as 
loss of property, of relatives and friends, of reputation ; and 
hence are strictly moral in their origin. The latter, or 
imaginary, arc the offspring, for the most part at least, of 
unhealthy states of some portion of our organization, and 
their origin is consequently physical. Thus may we have 
accumulated about us all those blessings of existence which 
the world so earnestly covet, as friends, kindred, fortune, 
fame, and yefrbc even far more miserable than the penniless, 
houseless, friendless wretch, who is forced day by day to 



PASSIONS. 119 

wring his scanty subsistence from the frigid hand of charity. 
Some morbid condition of the stomach, of the liver, or of the 
nervous system may, and without causing any well denned 
or appreciable bodily suffering, so influence the mind as to 
paralyze all its susceptibilities, dry up all its springs of en- 
joyment, and overwhelm it with fearful apprehension ; or, in 
the strong language of Dr. Brown, with "that fixed and 
deadly gloom, to which there is no sunshine in the summer 
sky, no verdure or blossom in the summer field, no kindness 
in affection, no purity in the very remembrance of innocence 
itself, no heaven but hell, no G-od but a demon of wrath."* 

But these imaginary sorrows, as they are called, are real 
enough to those who experience them, and vain is it to argue 
that they exist but in the fancy. They have a positive phy- 
sical cause, constantly operative, and are often infinitely 
more distressing than any absolute moral affliction, and 
more frequently lead to despair and suicide. 

Our moral have a much closer dependence on our physi- 
cal infirmities than mankind are generally prepared or will- 
ing to admit. It demands, in truth, an exaltation of will, 
of which few can boast, successfully to combat the morbid 
influences which the body often exercises on the mind. 
u He," says Dr. Reid, " whose disposition to goodness can 
resist the influence of dyspepsia, and whose career of philan- 
thropy is not liable to be checked by an obstruction in the 
hepatic organs, may boast of a much deeper and firmer vir- 
tue than falls to the ordinary lot of human nature."! 

* Philosophy of the Human Mind, 
t Essays on Hypochondriasis. 



120 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The extent, then, to which human happiness, and, it 
may be added, human virtue, must depend on the integrity 
of the bodily organism and its functions, can scarce be com- 
puted. There are some whose original fabrication is so de- 
fective, whose living machinery or individual parts of it 
are so prone to work wrong, that it would seem almost phy- 
sically impossible for them to be happy and amiable in their 
feelings and tempers. While, again, in others, so perfect 
is the whole organization, and consequently so healthy are 
all its functions, as to exempt them almost entirely from 
those multiform and terrible moral sufferings which come 
primarily from the body. Can we, therefore, escape the 
conclusion that we may be physically predisposed, I had 
almost said predestined to happiness or misery ? Such, in 
fact, is implied in the familiar expressions of happy and un- 
happy constitution or temperament. As, moreover, these 
vicious constitutions are oftentimes inherited, and must, pro- 
bably, in the first instance, have grown out of infringements 
of the organic laws, it becomes a literal truth, that the sins 
of the parents may be visited on their unoffending children, 
even to remote generations. " To be well born," then, is a 
matter of no little importance, " but," as has been wisely 
said by another, " not in the sense in which that expression 
is usually employed. The most substantial privileges of 
birth am not those which arc confined to the descendants 
of noble ancestors. 

' : Tlie heir of a sound constitution has no right to regret 
the absence of any other patrimony. A man who has de- 
rived from the immediate authors of his being, vigorous and 



PASSIONS. 121 

untainted stamina of mind as well as body, enters upon the 
world with a sufficient foundation and ample materials for 
Happiness."* 

The vast importance of a judicious physical education, 
both to virtue and happiness, cannot now but receive its 
just appreciation ; for under its influence even a bad con- 
stitution, and the moral infirmities which are its almost 
necessary attendants, may be, in a very considerable mea- 
sure, corrected. And we can likewise understand how es- 
sential is a prudent moral discipline to the good health of 
the body. In a perfect system of education, as it has been 
before remarked, the moral, intellectual, and physical na- 
tures are each subjects of most important, if not equal 
regard. 

The deduction may, I think, also be drawn from what 
has gone before, that the practice of medicine must be varied 
and modified to suit it to different conditions of society. 
The simple, routine, mechanical practice which might serve 
well enough in hospitals, dispensaries, and among the rude, 
unlettered, or mere manual laborers, might be but ill-suited 
to the refined, cultivated, intellectual and educated classes. 
Among the latter, the intellectual and moral powers being 
more developed, and exercising consequently greater influ- 
ence over the material organization and its functions, de- 
mand a more especial regard. Their nervous system also 
being more susceptible, and its sensibilities more delicate 
and acute, the means directed to the physical constitution 
have to be adjusted to suit such modified conditions. The 

* Dr. Reid on Hypochondriacal and other Nervous Affections. 
6 



122 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

judicious and intelligent physician, thus learns to shape 
his practice, not only according to the different diseases, 
but also the different classes of patients he may be called 
on to treat. He who has practised medicine only in hos- 
pitals and dispensaries, will find he has much to learn when 
he comes to pursue it among the higher and more culti- 
vated classes of society. 

Having learnt how the disposition may be affected by 
bodily conditions, ought we not to exercise a mutual for- 
bearance, and to cultivate feelings of charity for those infir- 
mities of temper, which even the best of men will occasion- 
ally display, and which oftentimes belong more to the flesh 
than the spirit? 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PASSIONS CONSIDERED MORE PARTICULARLY. THE PLEA- 
SURABLE PASSIONS, WITH THEIR EFFECTS ON THE PHYSICAL 
FUNCTIONS, SUMMARILY NOTICED. 

The pleasurable passions include love, hope, friendship, pride, 
etc. Joy, which is ranked among them, would seem to be 
rather a general expression, or consequence, of all this class 
of emotions, than in itself a distinct and specific one ; there- 
fore are we said to enjoy love, hope, friendship, etc. ; conse- 
quently the phenomena of the whole of them may be em- 
braced under the general head of joy. 

The passions founded on pleasure cause a universal ex- 
pansion — if so it may be expressed — of vital action. The 
blood, under their animating influence, flows more liberally 
to the superficies, and playing freely through its capillary 
vessels, the countenance becomes expanded, its expression 
brightens, and the whole surface acquires the ruddy tint 
and genial warmth of health. The body also feels buoyant 
and lively, and there is a consequent disposition to quick 
and cheerful muscular motions : to run, to jump, to dance, 



124 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

to laugh, to sing ; in short, every function would seem to be 
gladdened by the happy moral condition. The common ex- 
pressions, therefore, such as "the heart is light, or leaps 
with joy," " to swell with pride," " to be puffed up with vani- 
ty," " to be big with hope," are not altogether figurative ; 
for the heart does bound more lightly, and the body appears 
literally to dilate under the pleasurable affections of the 
mind. 

Nothing now contributes more effectually to the healthful 
and harmonious action of our organism than an equable dis- 
tribution of the blood to its various parts, and especially the 
free circulation of this fluid in the extreme vessels of the 
surface. A full, bright, and ruddy skin is always ranked 
among the surest tokens of health. The nervous system 
must also experience a salutary excitement under the agree- 
able moral emotions. But I need not further dwell on what 
will be so apparent to all, — the wholesome influence of a 
happy state of mind upon our bodily functions. " Love, 
hope, and joy," says the celebrated Haller, -promote perspi- 
ration, quicken the pulse, promote the circulation, increase 
the appetite, and facilitate the cure of diseases."* 

As, however, excess of feeling, whatever may be its cha- 
racter, is always prejudicial, even this class of passions, when 
violent, may be fraught with danger to health and life. 
Even felicity itself, if it exceed the bounds of moderation, 
will oppress, and sometimes even overwhelm us. When 
pleasurable feelings are extravagant, they become trans- 
formed into those which are painful. In other words, the 

• Physiology 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 125 

extremity of pleasure is pain.- Great joy is sometimes ex- 
pressed like grief, by sobbing and tears. And what seems 
yet more strange, grief is sometimes expressed by immode- 
rate laughter. " Dr. Crichton observes, ' that many (I am 
almost tempted to say most people) now and then have been 
inclined to laugh when a person has first begun to relate 
some misfortune. Nay, a more unaccountable circumstance 
of this kind is, that many people, when they have to tell of 
the death of another person, feel themselves often inclined 
to laugh at the moment they begin to speak of it;' and these 
individuals, he adds, are possessed of fine feelings. I knew 
two brothers who had experienced poignant grief from the 
death of a sister. The day after her interment they walked 
to her grave, a distance of two or three miles, to indulge 
their feelings, and on their return were seized with an irre- 
sistible propensity to immoderate and loud laughter, which 
continued for some time."* Laughter and weeping are 
oftentimes mingled in the expressions of both joy and sor- 
row, showing an unaccountable, a paradoxical relation be- 
tween the effects of these two opposite passions in their more 
acute forms. 

Extravagant and unexpected joy unduly excites the 
nervous system ; increases unnaturally and unequally the 
circulation, and occasions a painful stricture of the heart 
and lungs, accompanied with sighing, sobbing, and panting, 
as in severe grief. Under its influence, too, the visage will 
often turn pale, the limbs tremble and refuse their support 
to the body, and in extreme cases, fainting, convulsions? 

* Laycock on Hysteria. 



126 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

hysterics, madness, temporary ecstasy, or catalepsy, and 
even instant death, may ensue. If the subject be of a deli- 
cate and sensitive constitution, and more especially if he 
labors under any complaint of the heart, the consequences 
of the shock to the nervous system of sudden and immoder- 
ate joy will always be attended with exceeding hazard. 

I have mentioned insanity as one of the morbid effects of 
joy. Esquirol, however, a French writer on this disease, of 
high authority, asserts that the cheerful emotions are rarely 
its cause ; that joy, so excessive even as to destroy life, 
does not take away the reason ; and that on a careful in- 
vestigation of certain cases of insanity ascribed to joy, he 
became assured that the cause was mistaken. English 
writers, however, generally rank extravagant joy among the 
causes of mental alienation. Dr. Mead affirms, " that im- 
moderate joy, too long continued, as effectually disorders 
the mind as anxiety and grief," and says : — ." I have for- 
merly heard Dr. Uak, physician to Bcthleem-kospital, and 
of great experience in these matters, say more than once, 
that in the year MDCCXX, ever memorable for the iniqui- 
tous South Sea scheme, he had more patients committed to 
his care, whose heads were turned by the immense riches 
which fortune had suddenly thrown in their way, than of 
those who had been completely ruined by that abominable 
bubble."* It has been observed that adventurers in lotte- 
ries have Buffered more serious consequences, as loss of rea- 
son, and other physical ills, from the prizes than from the 

* Medical Precepts and Cautions, by Richard Mead, M. D., &c. 
London, 1751. pp. 88-9. 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 127 

blanks that they have drawn. — " An engineer proposed to 
the committee of public safety in the second year of the re- 
public, a project for a new invented cannon, of which the 
effects would be tremendous. A day was fixed for the ex- 
periment at Meudon ; and Hobespierre wrote to the in- 
ventor so flattering a letter, that upon perusing it, he was 
transfixed motionless to the spot. He was shortly after- 
wards sent to the Bicetre in a state of complete idiotism."* 

The assertion has been made by some, it was made by 
Zimmerman, that sudden joy is even more hazardous to 
life than sudden grief, and that there are more numerous 
instances of fatal effects from the former than the latter 
passion. 

Diagoras, a distinguished athlete of Rhodes, and whose 
merit was celebrated in a beautiful ode by Pindar, in- 
scribed in golden letters on a temple of Minerva, died 
suddenly from excess of joy on seeing his three sons return 
crowned as conquerors from the Olympic Grames. 

Dionysius, the second tyrant of that name, is recorded 
to have died of joy on learning the award of a poetical prize 
to his own tragedy. And Valerius Maximus has ascribed 
the death of Sophocles to a like cause. 

Chilo, a Spartan philosopher, called one of the 'seven 
wise men of Greece, on seeing his son obtain a victory at 
Olympia, fell overjoyed into his arms, and immediately 
expired. 

It is related that Pope Leo the Tenth, under the influ- 

* Treatise on Insanity. By Ph. Pinel, Prof, of the School of Medi- 
cine at Paris, etc. 



128 MENTAL HYGIENE, 

ence of extravagant joy at the triumph of his party against 
the French, and for the much coveted acquisition of Parma 
and Placentia, suddenly fell sick and died. " M. Juventius 
Thalna, on being told that a triumph had been decreed to 
him for having subdued Corsica, fell down dead before the 
altar at which he was offering up his thanksgiving. Vate- 
rus relates, that a brave soldier, who had never been sick, 
died suddenly in the arms of an only daughter, whom he 
had long wished to see. A worthy family in Holland being 
reduced to indigence, the elder brother passed over to the 
East Indies, acquired considerable riches there, and return- 
ing home, presented his sister with the richest jewels : the 
young woman, at this unexpected change of fortune, became 
motionless and died. The famous Fouquet died on being 
told that Louis XIV. had restored him to his liberty. The 
niece of the celebrated Leibnitz, not suspecting that a phi- 
losopher would hoard up treasure, died suddenly, on open- 
ing a box under her uncle's bed, which contained sixty 
thousand ducats."* 

Dr. Good tells us of a clergyman, an intimate friend of 
his own, who, at a time when his income was very limited, 
received the unexpected tidings that a property had been 
bequeathed to him amounting to three thousand pounds a 
year. " He arrived in London," says Dr. Good, " in great 
agitation, and entering his own door, dropt down in a fit 
of apoplexy, from which he never entirely recovered."! 
llaller made the remark, that '• excessive and sudden joy 

* Zimmerman on Experience in Physio. 

f Study of Medicine. 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 129 

often kills, by increasing the motion of the blood, and excit- 
ing a true apoplexy."* 

If the extreme of joy follow unexpectedly an emotion 
of an opposite character, the danger will be heightened. A 
story is recorded of two Roman matrons, who, on seeing 
their sons, whom they had believed to be dead, return from 
the famous battle fought between Hannibal and the Romans 
near the lake of Thrasymenus, and in which the Roman 
army was cut to pieces, passing suddenly from the deepest 
grief to the most vehement joy, instantly expired. 

Examples have likewise happened where culprits, just at 
the point of execution, have immediately perished on the 
unexpected announcement of a pardon. We may hence 
draw the important practical lesson, that the cure of one 
strong passion is seldom to be attempted by the sudden ex- 
citement of another, of an opposite character. Violent 
emotions are, as a general rule, to be extinguished cautiously 
and gradually. Rapid and extreme alternations of feeling, 
and indeed all sudden extremes, are repugnant to the laws, 
and, consequently, dangerous to the well-being of the ani- 
mal economy. To endeavor, at once, to eradicate deep 
grief by excessive joy, is, as I have seen it remarked, as 
irrational as it would be to expect the restoration of a frozen 
limb from pouring upon it hot water. 

Instances are not wanting where the inflation of pride, 
or immoderate self-esteem, which must be ranked among the 
pleasurable feelings, has actually deranged the understand- 

* Physiology. 
6* 



130 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

ing. Menecrates, a physician of Syracuse, as we read in 
classical literature, was particularly famed for his exalted 
self-conceit, and which at length so disturbed his intellect 
that he fancied himself to be the ruler of heaven, and, in a 
letter written to Philip, king of Macedon, styled himself 
Menecrates Jupiter. The Macedonian monarch, as the story 
goes, having invited this physician to one of his feasts, had 
prepared for him a separate table, on which he was served 
only with perfumes and frankincense, like the master of the 
gods. At first this treatment greatly delighted him : but 
soon growing hungry under such celestial fare, and the 
temptation of the substantial viands on which the rest were 
feasting, he began to feel that he was a mortal, and stole 
away in his proper senses. But then we have no occasion 
to go back to the ancients for instances of disordered intel- 
lect from overweening self-esteem. Thousands in the com- 
munity have their judgment blinded, and their reasoning 
powers impaired, through an extravagant and mistaken 
estimate of themselves. Esquirol places pride among the 
most frequent moral causes of insanity. And inordinate 
self-conceit is also a very common attendant on insanity. 
The insane almost always entertain an unduly exalted 
opinion of their own powers and consequence. Humility 
Seldom marks their disease. 

It will be readily seen, now, how undue praise or flattery 
may endanger the soundness of a weak and conceited mind ; 
and not always are strong intellects proof against it; even 
the most rigorous brain may sometimes be turned through 
the siren influence of adulation. I 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 131 

Another reason why pride, when immoderate, favors 
mental aberration, is its exceeding liability to become i#ixed 
with the painful passions. The proud suffer far more poig- 
nantly than the lowly-minded from contumely and humili- 
ating reverses of fortune, which, in this uncertain world, can 
seldom be altogether escaped. But here pride acts not as a 
pleasurable feeling, but by arousing and giving force to the 
painful emotions, the effects of which will engage our future 
consideration. 

The great importance, even in reference to bodily health, 
of an habitual cultivation of the pure, and generous, and 
amiable affections of our nature, will now be readily inferred, 
since they are all fraught with gentle pleasure, and all, there- 
fore, the sources of agreeable and salutary excitement. The 
mild and benevolent affections necessarily carry with them 
their own reward, both to body and mind. Under their 
kindly influence, the heart plays more freely and tranquilly, 
the respiration is more placid and regular, the food ac- 
quires new relish, and its digestion fresh vigor ; in short, 
they animate and perfect every living function, and expand 
and multiply all the various enjoyments of our being. With- 
out them, the heart would have no summer glow ; a cold 
selfishness would freeze up all its springs of joy, and the 
earth would become a dismal solitude, not worth inheriting. 
Sad, desolate, and weary is his lot, who lives but for himself 
— who has nothing to love ! " If we had been destined to 
live abandoned to ourselves on Mount Caucasus, or. in the 
deserts of Africa, perhaps Nature would have denied us a 
feeling heart ; but, if she had given us one, rather than love 



132 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

nothing, that heart would have tamed tigers, and animated 
rocB." 

The exercise of gentleness and good-will in our various 
social and domestic relations, not only contributes to our 
own moral and physical well-being, but also to the happi- 
ness, and consequently health, of those about us and depend- 
ent upon us. Courtesy, like mercy, carries with it a double 
blessing, — 

" It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." 

The ungentle and churlish in heart and manners, how- 
ever just they may be in principle, chill the feelings, and 
poison the happiness of all within the circle of their influ- 
ence. 

Cheerfulness, contentment, hope ! — need I say how pro- 
pitious are their effects on the various functions of the ani- 
mal economy ? Hope has well been termed a cordial, for 
what medicament have we so mild, so grateful, and at the 
same time so reviving in its effects 1 Many live almost 
entirely on its cordial influence. And deprived of its ani- 
mating incitement few would care to live. " Its character- 
istic is to produce a salutary medium between every excess 
and defect of operation in every function. Consequently it 
has a tendency to calm the troubled action of the vessels, to 
check and soothe the violent and irregular impetus of the 
nervous system, and to administer a bencfieial stimulus to 
the oppressed and debilitated powers of nature."* The able 

* Cognn on the Passions. 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 133 

physician well understands the advantage of encouraging 
this salutary feeling in the breasts of his patients. Hippo- 
crates uttered the opinion, verified by all succeeding physi- 
cians, that, other things equal, the practitioner who has the 
fullest confidence of his patients, will be most successful. 
Hence it is, that like medicines from a physician of fame, 
will oftentimes prove more successful than from others of 
less celebrity. On the same principle may oftentimes be 
explained the frequent improvement observed in a patient 
on a change of his physician j and also the benefit not rarely 
derived from newly-discovered and much-talked-of remedies. 
It is to the faith and hopes awakened in the credulous 
minds of the sick by his dogmatical promises, that the em- 
piric owes his chief success in disease. That the patient 
then should possess faith in medicine, and confidence in 
his physician, is of no little moment as respects his re- 
covery. " It is of little consequence," it has been remarked, 
"whether a man be healed through the medium of his fancy 
or his stomach." 

I have previously shown that sudden transports of joy 
may be attended with serious, and even fatal consequences ; 
is it unreasonable therefore to suppose, that the pleasurable 
feelings may, in some rare instances, continue to exist with 
too great ardor, consuming with an unnatural rapidity the 
mysterious forces of life? I have occasionally met with 
individuals, and I dare say my readers will call some such 
to mind, who appeared to live almost continually in an un- 
natural state of felicity ; whose every thought and feeling 
seemed pregnant with an enthusiasm of delight ; who were 



134 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

predisposed, physically predisposed to be happy, intensely 
happy ; and these seemingly favored beings have generally 
come to an early grave : it appearing as though nature had 
ordained that none of us should exceed a limited sum of 
enjoyment, and that in proportion, therefore, as she height- 
ens its intenseness, does she curtail its duration. 

The human constitution was manifestly never designed 
for acute excitements, whether of a pleasurable or painful 
character ; hence its energies soon waste under their too 
constant operation. Even our good desires, then, may be 
too impetuous, and our virtuous zeal outrun the limits of 
healthful moderation. It is an apt saying that " the archer 
who shoots beyond the mark, misses it as much as he that 
comes short of it." There is no privilege more to be de- 
sired, there is nothing more conducive to health, longevity, 
and true enjoyment, than a just equanimity of mind, a quiet 
harmony among the various passions ; wherefore it is that 
most philosophers have made our sovereign good to consist 
in the tranquillity of soul and body, leaving ecstatic pleas- 
ures and rapturous feelings to beings of a different nature 
from our own. 

' ; A constant serenity," says Dr. Mackenzie, " supported 
by hope, or cheerfulness arising from a good conscience, is 
the most healthful of all the affections of the mind." And 
the same author, in enumerating the natural marks of lon- 
gevity, mentions a calm, contented, and cheerful disposi- 
tion.* Sailer also, in speaking of longevity, says: "Some 

i The*Hietory <>f 1 1 <-a ] ih and the Art of preserving it. 



PLEASURABLE PASSIONS. 135 

prerogative seems to belong to sobriety, at least in a moder- 
ate degree, temperate diet, peaceable disposition, a mind not 
endowed with great vivacity, but cheerful, and little subject 
to care." 

As old age comes on, the pleasurable susceptibilities all 
become weakened, and the keenness of passion in general is 
blunted. Not, however, that the aged, as some would seem 
to fancy, are left destitute of enjoyment, for each period of 
our being has its characteristic pleasures. They have 
parted, to be sure, with the eager sensibilities which mark 
the freshness of existence, but then they have gained a moral 
tranquillity with which earlier years are seldom blessed. 
The storms of youthful passion have subsided within their 
breasts, and if life has passed well with them morally and 
physically, they now repose placidly amid the calm of its 
decline. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

GENERAL PHENOMENA OF THE PAINFUL PASSIONS AS MANIFESTED 
IN THE BODILY FUNCTIONS. 

The second class of passions, now to be examined, are dis- 
tinguished by phenomena very different from those which 
have just been described. As the emotions based on pleas- 
ure determine the blood to the surface, equalize the general 
circulation and vital action, expand the body, lighten and 
cheer the heart, and animate all the functions ; those founded 
on pain induce a series of results precisely opposite in their 
character. Under the active influence of these latter, the 
whole body appears, as it were, to shrink or contract. The 
blood abandons the surface, and so being thrown in undue 
quantity upon the internal organs, there follows that inward 
oppression, that painful sense of stricture and suffocation, 
and the consequent desire for fresh air, which always mark 
the intensity of this class of passions. Hence the frequent 
sighing under severe grief, which act consists in a deep in- 
spiration, succeeded by a corresponding expiration, and thus 
by expanding freely the chest, and affording a larger supply 



PAINFUL PASSIONS. 137 

of air, it alleviates, in some measure, the heart and lungs of 
their suffocative load. There are few, however, so privileged 
beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, but must be well ac- 
quainted with that painful sense of tightness and weight at 
the chest, that panting and struggling of the breath, and 
laboring of the heart, the certain accompaniments of aggra- 
vated sorrow. 

As an equable distribution of the blood to the various 
organs, and its free circulation through the capillary vessels 
of the surface are, as stated under the pleasurable emotions, 
salutary to the physical economy ; an inequality, on the 
other hand, in the dispensation of this vital fluid, or partial 
determinations of it, must always prove detrimental to its 
welfare. Whenever the blood is disproportionably accumu- 
lated upon the internal viscera — which has been shown to 
happen from the operation of the painful and depressing 
passions — their functions quickly become disturbed, and 
even the integrity of their organization endangered. 

The painful passions also act immediately on the nervous 
system, depressing, disordering, expending, and sometimes 
even annihilating its energies. A morbid concentration of 
the nervous influence upon the internal organs, has likewise 
been supposed to take place under the operation of the pain- 
ful passions, and to which have been referred those distress- 
ing internal sensations which they so generally occasion. 

The painful and depressing emotions exercise a striking 
influence on the various secretions — increasing, diminishing, 
and depraving them. Thus dryness of the mouth, from 
suppression of the salivary secretion, almost always attends 



138 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

severe and unpleasant affections of the mind. This is proved 
" by the well-known test, often resorted to in India, for the 
discovery of a thief amongst the servants of a family — that 
of compelling all the parties to hold a certain quantity of 
rice in the mouth during a few minutes — the offender being 
generally distinguished by the comparative dryness of his 
mouthful."* But there are few of us, it is to be presumed, 
who have not experienced that uncomfortable dryness of the 
mouth and throat, huskiness of the voice, frequent and diffi- 
cult swallowing, which proceed from moral embarrassment, 
agitation, and suffering. Even poisonous properties are 
said to have been imparted to the saliva by violent mental 
commotions. The secretion of milk is in a particular man- 
ner affected by the disturbing and depressing passions, as 
anxiety, grief, fear, anger, fretfulness, &c. Under their in- 
fluence it may be diminished, or be entirely suppressed, or be- 
come so vitiated as to cause disease, and even death, in the 
infant. We shall have occasion to recur to this subject — 
the effect of the moral feelings on the secretions — under the 
particular passions. 

I have stated that the general effect of the painful pas- 
sions is to induce a contraction or concentration, and a 
depression of the actions of life, but in their more aggra- 
vated forms, they are sometimes followed by a transient ex- 
citement, reaction or vital expansion, when their operation 
becoming more diffused, is necessarily weakened in relation 
to any individual organ. Under such circumstances, the 

* Carpenter's Human Fhysiology. 



PAINFUL PASSIONS. 139 

oppression of the heart and lungs is in a measure removed, 
and the circulation and respiration go on with more free- 
dom. Hence it is, that when anger and grief explode, or 
break forth into violent action and vociferation, and tears 
flow abundantly, their consequences are much less to be 
dreaded than when they are deep, still, and speechless, for 
then it is that their force is most concentrated. Thus 
Malcolm says to Macduff, overwhelmed by the cruel tidings 
of the murder of his wife and children : — 

" What, man ! ne'er, pull your hat upon your brows ; 
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak, 
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break." 

Let me here repeat the general and important truth, 
that the pleasurable passions tend to expand or enlarge the 
sphere of vital action, and to equalize its distribution, and 
are therefore salutary in their physical effects, whilst those 
of a painful nature concentrate or contract, and disturb its 
just equilibrium, and are consequently deleterious. To be 
convinced of this, we need but contrast the countenance of 
the happy and confident with that of the sad and despon- 
dent. In the former it is bright and dilated, and the blood 
plays freely in its extreme vessels. In the latter, it is pale, 
sickly, contracted, and expressive of inward pain. 

As, therefore, when we use the familiar expressions, — to 
be light or buoyant with joy, — to expand with pleasure, — to 
be inflated with pride. — to be puffed up with vanity, we but 
express physiological truths ; so do we likewise when we say 



140 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the heart is oppressed or breaking with grief; or that the 
body shrinks with fear, or withers under sorrow and des- 
pair. 

It is, moreover, worthy of remark, that the same spare 
or contracted state of the body, and sallowness of the com- 
plexion, which result from the operation of the painful and 
depressing passions, are, when constitutional or dependent 
on incidental causes acting primarily on the physical system, 
very commonly associated with an unhappy and unamiable 
disposition. Thus Cassar, while he put trust in the rosy 
and expanded face and full-fed sides of Marc Antony, 
looked with suspicion on the pale and contracted coun- 
tenance, and meagre frame of Cassius. 

" Would he were fatter ! — But I fear him not : 
Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius." 

Here, then, we have a further illustration of the state- 
ment previously made, that the like bodily condition may 
be either the cause or the effect of particular passions ; that 
an interchange of influence is constantly and necessarily 
taking place between our moral and physical natures. 

I will now go on to exhibit somewhat more in detail, 
the effects of the painful emotions on our bodily functions, 
under the general heads of anger, fear, grief, envy, jealousy, 
and shame. I select the three former of these, especially, 
as being by far the most comprehensive in their character. 



PAINFUL PASSIONS. - 141 

In truth they must enter, one or more, into all the numer- 
ous varieties of this division of passions ; accordingly, the 
descriptions of their phenomena will necessarily comprise 
the principal ones of the whole class. Perhaps, indeed, all 
the painful passions, could they be subjected to an accurate 
analysis, might be found but modifications of, and con- 
sequently be reducible to, anger, grief, or fear. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ANGER. VARIOUS PHENOMENA DISTINGUISHING THE ACUTE 

STATE OF THIS PASSION. 

Anger "being founded especially on the instinct of self-pre- 
servation, is essential to the constitution of all animate 
beings. It is aroused by, and at the same time urges us by 
an instinctive impulse to repel or destroy, all such causes as 
oppose or threaten our moral or physical ease and security ; 
or, in other words, which bring unhappincss to the 
mind, or pain, injury, or destruction to the body. Hence 
it is often directed against the irrational, and even in- 
animate objects of creation. Modified and abused, there- 
fore, as we find it, it was originally implanted in our breasts 
as a necessary safeguard alike to our happiness and ex- 
istence. This passion, although more frequently of a purely 
selfish nature, may originate in our sympathies with the 
wrongs and injuries of others, or in the feeling of repug- 
nance toward injustice, or wickedness in general, when, it 
assuming a more beneficent and dignified character, we often 
express it by the term indignation. 

In an extreme paroxysm of anger, which T will here 



ANGER. 143 

describe, the most painful phenomena are exhibited. The 
countenance becomes distorted and repulsive, and the eye 
sparkles with a brutal fury. All the vital actions are com- 
monly, in the first instance, oppressed, and are many times 
nearly overwhelmed. The blood recedes from the surface, 
leaving it cold and blanched ; and tremors and agitations 
often come over the limbs, or even the whole body, and 
sighing, sobbing, and distressing nervous affections, as hys- 
terics, spasms, convulsions, especially where there is a pre- 
disposition to such, are of not unfrequent occurrence. The 
vital fluid, and may-be the nervous influence also, being 
impelled from the exterior, and thus accumulated on the 
internal organs, the functions of these become sensibly em- 
barrassed. The motion of the heart is feeble, labored, ir- 
regular, and oftentimes painful. The breathing is short, 
rapid, difficult or suffocative, and a tightness or stricture is 
felt in the whole chest, in some cases extending to the throat, 
and causing a sense of choking, impeding, or for a time wholly 
interrupting the power of speech. Hence, probably, comes 
the expression, " to be choked with rage." 

The organs of the abdomen also come in for their share 
of the prejudicial influence. Thus distress is apt to be ex- 
perienced in the situation of the stomach, and the functions 
of this organ, with those of the liver and bowels, may under- 
go various disturbances. 

Fainting sometimes takes place in violent anger ; and in 
occasional instances, the system being unable to react under 
the intensity of the shock, life has surrendered itself almost 
as to a stroke of lightning ; and the death here, or from 



144 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

such sudden gust of passion, is, according to Mr. Hunter, as 
absolute as that caused by the electric fluid, the muscles 
remaining flaccid, the blood liquid, or dissolved in its ves- 
sels, and the body passing rapidly into putrefaction. Reac- 
tion, however, does for the most part speedily ensue, and 
many times, even in severe paroxysms, the excitement is 
manifested from the very beginning. Under the active 
stage of anger the following train of phenomena will be dis- 
played in greater or less strength. 

The heart now aroused, beats quick and forcibly, and 
the blood rushing impetuously to the head and surface, the 
brain becomes heated, the face flushed, the lips swollen, the 
eyes red and fiery, the skin hot, and literally may it be said 
that we burn with anger. The muscles also contract with a 
preternatural strength ; the fists and teeth often become 
clinched as in preparation for combat, and the impulses of 
instinct subduing perhaps altogether the will and reasoning 
powers, the brutalized slave of passion vociferates, stamps, 
threatens, is violently agitated, and perceiving and judging 
in a manner wholly different from what he would in a tran- 
quil state of mind, his character becomes allied to that of 
the maniac, and thus may he commit acts the bare thoughts 
or mention of which would strike him with horror under a 
more rational or unpassionatcd state of feelings. To this 
forcible reaction of anger the term rage, or fury, is often 
applied. 

.Different individuals, owing to their native tempera- 
ment, bodily health, and moral education, vary remarkably 
in their propensity to anger, as well as in the pertinacity 



ANGER. 145 

with which they cherish it. In some it is sudden and tran- 
sient, while in others, though perhaps less hasty, it assumes 
a more deep and lasting character, settling into that malig- 
nant feeling called revenge, the most terrible, and often- 
times the most obdurate one that degrades the human soul, 
so that the poets, the true painters of our passions, have 
fabled it as immortal. The disposition to anger will, as a 
general rule, be found greater, and the passion more precipi- 
tate and ungovernable in hot than in cold climates. 

In many of the inferior animals, when enraged, the vari- 
ous physical phenomena of the emotion under notice, may 
be seen in all their formidableness. In those of our own 
species, too, in whom, either from physical organization, or 
defective moral and intellectual culture, the animal or baser 
nature is ascendant, we oftentimes behold exhibitions of it 
equally fearful. 

Anger accompanied with paleness of the surface, or in 
which reaction does not take place, is generally most deep, 
and its consequences most formidable. Some persons al- 
ways become pale when under its influence, which may now 
and then be owing to the mingling with it of a certain 
measure of fear, which passion has a more depressing 
operation. 

Anger sometimes proves fatal, the severity of its shock 
at once suppressing the action of the heart, or, as occasion- 
ally has happened, causing an actual rupture of this organ, 
or some of its large blood-vessels ; for the heart, although a 
strong muscle, is sometimes broken, literally broken by pas- 
sion. Apoplexy, hemorrhages, convulsions, or other grave 
7 



146 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

affections, may likewise proceed from anger, quickly termi- 
nating existence. 

Although the danger from this passion is generally les- 
sened by reaction, still, when such is violent, the blood may 
be so forcibly impelled as to induce fatal apoplexies, or 
hemorrhages. 

The emperor Nerva died of a violent excess of anger 
against a senator who had offended him. Yalentinian, the 
first Roman emperor of that name, while reproaching with 
great passion the deputies from the Quadi, a people of Ger- 
many, burst a blood-vessel, and«6uddenly fell lifeless to the 
ground. "I have seen," says a French medical writer, 
" two women perish, the one in convulsions, at the end of 
six hours, and the other suffocated in two days, from giving 
themselves up to transports of fury."* 

If there chance to exist any tendency to apoplexy, as in 
those of a plethoric habit, and who live generously, or should 
there be any complaint at the heart, the danger from anger 
will be much increased. Hence it is that old men, who are 
more particularly disposed to affections of this sort, offer the 
most frequent examples of sudden death from passion. 

Numerous examples of apoplexy occasioned by anger, 
are recorded both in ancient and modern works on this dis- 
ease. Bonetus tells of a lady who, in consequence of a sud- 
den fit of anger, was seized with violent and fatal apoplexy, 
and in whose brain blood was found largely diffused. "A 
gentleman somewhat more than seventy years of age, of a 

* Tourtelle. 



ANGER. 147 

full habit of body, and florid countenance, on getting into 
his carriage to go to his country house, was thrown into a 
violent passion by some circumstances which suddenly oc- 
curred. He soon afterwards complained of pain in his 
head, and by degrees he became sleepy, and in about a 
quarter of an hour wholly insensible. He was carried into 
the shop of an apothecary at Kentish Town, and was imme- 
diately largely bled. When I saw him, about an hour after- 
wards, I found him laboring under all the symptoms of 
strong apoplexy. In about twenty-four hours he died."* 

The distinguished John Hunter fell a sudden victim to 
a paroxysm of anger. Mr. Hunter, as is familiar to medi- 
cal readers, was a man of extraordinary genius, but the sub- 
ject of violent passions, and which, from defect of early 
moral culture, he had not learned to control. Suffering, 
during his latter years, under a complaint of the heart, his 
existence was in constant jeopardy from his ungovernable 
temper ; and he had been heard to remark, that " his life 
was in the hands of any rascal who chose to annoy and 
tease him." Engaged one day in an unpleasant altercation 
with his colleagues, and being peremptorily contradicted, he 
at once ceased speaking, hurried into an adjoining room, and 
instantly fell dead. Mr. Hunter ascribed the commence- 
ment of his heart-disease to a fit of passion. 

The heart receiving immediately the shock of every fit 
of anger, the life of the passionate man who labors under an 
affection of this organ, must be held in constant uncertainty. 

* Treatise on Nervous Diseases. By John Cooke, M. D., etc. 



148 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Nothing does more to protract existence under complaints 
of this nature than moral serenity. 

Various morbid effects of a more or less grave and last- 
ing character are also liable to follow immoderate anger. 
Thus palsies, epilepsy, hysteria, and mania may be placed 
among its occasional consequences. Anger, or violent or 
ungovernable temper, as it is sometimes expressed, holds, 
according to the reports of different lunatic asylums, both of 
Europe and America, a prominent place among the causes 
of insanity. Raving madness is said to be the form of 
mental derangement which most often results from this 
cause, though dementia has sometimes been the consequence 
of its sudden operation. Dr. Grood cites the case of Charles 
the Sixth of France, "who being violently incensed against 
the duke of Bretagne, and burning with a spirit of malice 
and revenge, could neither eat, drink, nor sleep, for many 
days together, and at length became furiously mad as he 
was riding on horseback, drawing his sword, and striking 
promiscuously every one who approached him. The dis- 
ease fixed upon his intellect, and accompanied him to his 
death."* 

Anger destroys the appetite, and checks or disorders the 
function of digestion. Let one receive a provocation in the 
midst of his dinner, and lie at once loses all relish for the 
food before him. Dr. Beaumont, who had under his charge 
a man with a fistulous opening into his stomach, so large 
that the interior of this organ could easily be inspected, rc- 

> Snidy ot Medicine. 



A N G E ft . 149 

marked that anger, or other severe mental emotions, would 
sometimes cause its mucous, or lining coat, to become mor- 
bidly red, dry, and irritable ; occasioning, at the same time, 
a temporary fit of indigestion. Pains and cramps of the 
stomach and bowels sometimes follow the severe influence 
of this passion, and the liver may also become implicated in 
its morbid effects. Thus the flow of bile has been so aug- 
mented under its sudden action, as even to occasion a bilious 
vomiting, or diarrhoea. An old writer relates a case of fatal 
ileus, from volvulus, caused by a paroxysm of anger. And 
Dr. Whytt observes of this same passion, that in women it 
frequently occasions spasmodic contractions in the bowels, 
and flatulent or hysteric colic. 

This, like other emotions when forcible, variously affects 
the different secretions. Under its influence the saliva be- 
comes diminished, and consequently inspissated, whence its 
frothy whiteness, and adhesiveness, and the frequent swallow- 
ing under its action. Dr. Whytt speaks of it as having been 
followed by an uncommon excretion of saliva; and we have the 
statement on various and respectable medical authority that 
the secretions of the mouth may become poisonous through 
rage. Dr. G-ood remarks, '-'that most animals, when roused 
by a high degree of rage, inflict a wound of a much more 
irritable kind than when in a state of tranquillity : and we 
have numerous examples in which such wound has been 
very diflicult of cure, and not a few in which it has proved 
fatal ; as though at all times, under such a state of excite- 
ment, some peculiar acrimony was secreted with the saliva."* 

* Study of Medicine. 



150 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

It has even been affirmed that true hydrophobia may be 
generated by the bite of an animal when transported by 
fury : in proof of which many examples are cited from the 
older medical writers ; and some, where even the bite of a 
man worked up into fury has produced symptoms of this 
disease. How far we may accredit these marvellous rela- 
tions is matter of some doubt, though it would seem hardly 
reasonable to impugn the truth of all of them, resting as 
they do on the testimony of such numerous authorities. 
That some, or even many, were cases of tetanus mistaken 
for hydrophobia, is altogether probable. Broussais asserts 
that anger imparts to the saliva " poisonous qualities, capa- 
ble of provoking convulsions, and even madness, in those 
persons bitten by a man agitated with it." 

The secretion of milk is often very remarkably affected 
by fits of anger, being rendered so irritating as to cause 
griping and morbid discharges in the infant. An irritable 
and fretful temper has been found to diminish its quantity, 
to render it thin and serous, and so to deprave its quality as 
variously to disorder the bowels of the child. 

Various hemorrhages, as from the nose, lungs, stomach, 
and inflammations of different parts, as of the skin, the 
brain, the stomach, the lungs, have occasionally followed 
severe fits of passion. The author last cited states, that he 
has seen haemoptysis, or spitting of blood, and violent pneu- 
monia, or inflammation of the lungs, proceed solely from 
anger. He relates the case of an elderly man, who, owing to 
a violent lit of anger, occasioned by a visit from some foreign 
soldiers, was suddenly affected with an extensive inflamma- 



ANGER. 151 

tion of the right loin, which terminated in a large and bad 
ulcer. 

Dr. Laycock, in his Essay on Hysteria, reports a case of 
a young woman, of indolent habits and obstinate temper, 
becoming affected with hysteria, ecstasy, and sweating of 
blood, from being angered. Having been much irritated in 
consequence of some remarks of her parents, she left home 
in consequence, and after wandering about for some time, 
she entered a hospital, suffering under violent attacks of 
hysteria and general convulsions. " After paroxysms which 
sometimes lasted twenty-four or thirty-six hours, she fell into 
a kind of ecstasy — her eyes being fixed, and sensibility and 
motion suspended. Sometimes she muttered a prayer, and 
blood would exude in drops from the cheeks and epigastri- 
um, in the form of perspiration." Dr. Whytt observes, that 
anger has been immediately followed by bleeding at the 
nipples, and a rupture of such vessels as were lately 
cicatrized.* 

I have now and then met with instances of erysipelatous 
inflammation about the face and neck, induced by paroxysms 
of passion. Other cutaneous affections, as urticaria, or net- 
tle-rash, lepra, or leprosy, and herpetic eruptions, will often- 
times, especially where any predisposition to them exists, be 
produced by the same cause. I have known nettle-rash, in 
some constitutions, to be almost uniformly brought on by 
any strong mental emotion. And of leprosy, Cazenave re- 
marks, that " one of the most common causes is to be traced 

* Observations on Nervous Disorders. 



1 52 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

to the mental affections : hence it is not rare to see Lepra 
vulgaris supervene on a fit of anger, or violent grief or 
fear."* Dr. Pettigrew cites a singular effect of auger, in a 
boy. Whenever he " fell into a passion, one-half of his face 
would become quite pale, while the other was very red and 
heated, and these two colors were exactly limited by a line 
running down the middle of the forehead, nose, lips, and 
chin. When this boy had heated himself by any violent 
exercise, the whole face became equally red."f 

As substances most prejudicial, and even poisonous, to 
the healthy organism, may exercise medicinal virtues in cer- 
tain states of disease, so extreme anger, although generally 
baneful in its effects, has, by its powerful impulse, occasion- 
ally subdued distressing and obstinate maladies, as neural- 
gia, gout, agues, paralysis, and various nervous affections. 
Dr. Abercrombie mentions a case of palsy of six years' con- 
tinuance, where recovery suddenly took place under a violent 
paroxysm of anger. 

* On Cutaneous Diseases. 

t Superstitions connected with Medicine and Surgery. 



' CHAPTER XY. 

ANGER, CONCLUDED. — PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ITS CHRONIC 

ACTION. IT MAY BE EXCITED BY MORBID STATES OF THE 

BODILY ORGANS. AND THUS BE STRICTLY PHYSICAL IN ITS 
ORIGLN. 

Having learnt in the preceding chapter how severe and 
dangerous are* the effects of acute anger on the vital econo- 
my, it will create no surprise that, under its more chronic 
action, as in habitual irritability or fretfulness of temper, 
enmity, hatred, revenge, or other malevolent feelings, as 
envy or jealousy, in which anger, to a greater or less degree, 
is almost necessarily blended, the bodily health should, 
earlier or later, experience a baneful influence. The con- 
tinued torment of mind proceeding from passions of this 
nature, can scarce be otherwise than detrimental to the 
physical constitution. In the stomach and liver, their ef- 
fects are early and clearly evinced. Thus will the appetite 
and digestion become impaired, and the hepatic secretion be 
variously disordered, and sometimes partially or even en- 
tirely obstructed, when the bile, being absorbed into the 



154 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

system, taints the complexion with that dark and bilious 
hue which is so characteristic of an unamiable or malignant 
temper. Wherefore the common expression, to turn black 
with anger, hatred, or revenge, it is not unlikely originated 
in just observation. It is a literal truth, although expressed 
in poetry, that one may 

" Creep into the, jaundice, 



By being peevish." 

Irritability and moroseness of temper may also occasion 
various inflammatory and nervous complaints, and those 
more especially to which there is a constitutional tendency. 
Gout, rheumatism, hysterics, nervous headaches, tic doulou- 
reux, and numerous other painful affections, are liable to 
be excited, or their fits to be renewed under such prejudi- 
cial influences. 

Nothing surely can be more desirable, both as it con- 
cerns our moral and physical health, than a quiet resigna- 
tion to the fate decreed us. Fretting and repining under 
unavoidable evils only adds to their burden, and to the eye 
of true philosophy shows a temper about as inconsistent as 
that exhibited by some of the heathen world in flagellating 
their gods for the calamities befalling them. 

The condition of temper now occupying our considera- 
tion, is particularly injurious when the system is laboring 
under disease. It is well known to every observing phy- 
sician, that fractious patients, other circumstances being 
the same, recover less promptly, and are more exposed to 



ANGER. 155 

relapses than those who bear their sufferings with more com- 
posure and resignation. And equally familiar is it to the 
surgeon, that under a bad state of temper, wounds heal less 
kindly, and when recently healed will even at times break 
out afresh. Likewise, that external inflammations pass less 
safely and regularly through their restorative processes, and 
that the pus of abscesses may be speedily transformed from 
a healthy to a morbid condition, under such unfriendly 
moral agency. 

Regarding then merely our physical welfare, the import- 
ance of cultivating an amiableness of temper, of educating 
ourselves to meet with tranquilness the little ills and crosses 
of life, will not be denied. It is, after all, the minor evils, 
the trifling annoyances, or such as tend but to ruffle or fret 
our feelings, that are apt to be the least resolutely sup- 
ported, and that oftentimes do more to mar our happiness, 
and impair our health, than even absolute and grave calami- 
ties. Many who would be impatient under the pricking of 
a pin, might submit with scarce a tremor or complaint to a 
grave and painful operation. It is only under strong oc- 
casions that the full energies of our nature are called forth. 
Our powers are aroused in correspondence with the emer- 
gencies they have to encounter. Thus it is only in lofty 
and responsible positions that the human character dis- 
covers its full force and dignity. Even the weak and timid 
soul will often astonish us by its patience and fortitude 
under great sufferings and dangers. Slight maladies of 
body, too, will frequently be marked by excessive irritability 
and unreasonable repining, while those of a more serious 



156 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

character are oftener distinguished by unusual calmness and 
submission. Death is the most important of all events we 
are destined to encounter, and it is truly astonishing how 
the powers of the mind will frequently rise to meet it ; — 
with what composure and resignation even the most timid 
and sensitive may encounter its approach. In children the 
moral powers will not rarely seem to be elevated as the 
physical yield, and the observation was made by Dr. Zim- 
merman, that they are never more amiable than in their 
last illness. 

" We observe in children, who are sick and in a danger- 
ous situation, a very unusual compliance in every thing, 
together with a degree of knowledge, which is the fruit only 
of reflection and experience, and a genius and eloquence 
far above their years."* It would seem a law of our being 
then, and truly a beneficent and consolatory one, and from 
which numerous moral reflections might be drawn, that the 
energies of the soul should be developed in accordance with 
the importance of the exigencies to be encountered — should 
mount above even death itself. 

The immediate and annoyful physical effects of mental 
irritation are strikingly displayed in those of a nervous and 
sensitive temperament, when disturbed on retiring to rest, 
by unseasonable noises, as the barking of dogs, crying of 
children, thrumming of pianos, etc. Under such vexing 
circumstances, the action of the heart often becomes un- 
naturally accelerated, and each pulsation of it is painfully 

* ( >n Experience in Physic. 



ANGER. 157 

sensible. A disagreeable dryness, too, is commonly ex- 
perienced in the mouth and throat, with feverishness, some- 
times itching of the skin, and a general nervous agitation 
or restlessness, often more harassing than even definite and 
seated pain, and the health, as might be expected, remains 
disturbed through the whole of the subsequent day. Under 
the condition described, the nervous sensibility will some- 
times be raised to such morbid acuteness, that the slightest 
sounds, even the ticking of a clock, will be almost insup- 
portable. 

Some persons are constitutionally irritable, and in such 
the infirmity will be found hard indeed of cure, as persons 
are seldom entirely reasoned out of their physical predis- 
positions. I have known persons so excessively irritable in 
their temper, and exercising so little government over it, as 
to be but slightly, if at all removed, from moral insanity. 
" We not unfrequently," says Dr. Carpenter, u meet with 
individuals, still holding their place in society, who are ac- 
customed to act so much upon feeling, and to be so little 
guided by reason, as to be scarcely regarded as sane ; and 
a very little exaggeration of such a tendency causes the 
actions to be so injurious to the individual himself, or to 
those around him, that restraint is required, although the 
intellect is in no way disordered, nor are any of the feelings 

perverted The habit of yieldiDg to a natural 

infirmity of temper often leads into paroxysms of ungovern- 
able rage, which, in their turn, pass into a state of maniacal 
excitement."* 

* Human Physiology. 



158 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

An irritable and fractions temper, whether due to na- 
tive temperament, or other causes, becomes, necessarily, the 
instrument of its own punishment : 

" Secum petulans amentia certat." 

And it furthermore poisons the happiness of all within the 
circle of its influence. To so many occasions of annoyance, 
to so many petty vexations are we all, even the most for- 
tunate of us, exposed, that the happiness of the naturally irri- 
table man must be continually encountering obstacles, and 
his health consequently be ever liable to injury. Heavy in- 
deed are the penalties to which we are oftentimes doomed 
for the native faults of our organization ! 

It will be seen from what has preceded, how essential it 
is, on physical as well as moral considerations, that children 
be timely educated to control their tempers. Those who 
have been too fondly indulged, or to whose passions an in- 
discreet license has been permitted, will be likely to enjoy 
less uniform good health, — to suffer more frequent disor- 
ders of their digestive organs, than such as have been the 
subjects of a stricter and wiser moral discipline. 

" Although," says Dr. Ileid, " an evenness and quietness 
of temper may, in many cases, appear connate or constitu- 
tional, equanimity ought not on that account to be regarded 
as altogether out of the reach of acquisition. The feelings 
which have been subject to an habitual restraint will sel- 
dom be found to rise above their proper level. Dispropor- 
tionate emotions may often, in early life at least, be cor- 



ANGER. 159 

rected, in the same manner as deformities and irregularities 
of bodily shape are, by means of constant pressure, forced 
into a more natural figure and dimension."* "By too 
great indulgence and a want of moral discipline, the pas- 
sions acquire greater power, and a character is formed sub- 
ject to caprice and to violent emotions : a predisposition to 
insanity is thus laid in the temper and moral affections of 
the individual. The exciting causes of madness have greater 
influence on persons of such habits than on those whose 
feelings are regulated."! 

"We take great care," says Esquirol, speaking of the 
vicious morals and education of France as causes of insani- 
ty, " to form the mind, but seem to forget that the heart, 
like the mind, has need of education. 

li The ridiculous and deplorable tenderness of parents, 
subjects to the caprices of infancy the reason of mature age. 

" Accustomed to follow all his inclinations, and not be- 
ing habituated by discipline to contradiction, the child, hav- 
ing arrived at maturity, cannot resist the vicissitudes and 
reverses by which life is agitated. On the least adversity 
insanity bursts forth ; his feeble reason being deprived of 
its support, while the passions are without rein, or any kind 
of restraint." The same author relates the case of a lady 
nineteen years of age, of a sanguine temperament, who, hav- 
ing never experienced the least contradiction, was exceed- 
ingly choleric, and of extreme susceptibility. Under the 

* On Nervous Affections, etc. 
t Prichard on Insanity. 



160 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

smallest provocation she became so irritated as to give her- 
self up to the most insane acts of anger. She abused her 
mother and friends, and threatened both their lives and her 
own. After each attack of such fury she fell into a state of 
prostration, and was, after a while, restored to calmness of 
body and mind. If she attempted to restrain the outbreak 
of her anger, she experienced severe sufferings. Her head 
became swollen, her face and eyes injected with blood, and 
this state was only relieved, by allowing vent to her rage. 

Anger in its various degrees and modifications may 
grow out of, or the propension to it may be aggravated by 
various morbid conditions of our bodily organs. Unhealthy 
states of the liver are well known to render the temper sus- 
picious, peevish, or morose ; and a large share of our moral 
infirmities were ascribed by the ancients to an excess in the 
secretion of this organ. Hence comes it that the term gall, 
or bile, is used synonymously with anger, malignity, or bit- 
terness of temper. And choleric, which signifies passion- 
ate, is derived from the Greek word ^0X77, choke, meaning 
bile. 

In many morbid affections of the stomach, the subjects 
become exceedingly irritable, venting their spleen upon 
every body and every thing about them ; and inflammation 
of this organ will sometimes induce violent fits of passion. 
It is doubtless through the morbid excitement which they 
awaken in the mucous or inner gastric coat, that stimulating 
food and drinks will, in some constitutions, always enkindle 
an irasoibleness of feeling. The liberal use of wine or spirit 
is, in certain individuals, uniformly followed by fearful out- 



ANGER. 161 

breaks of anger. It is said of Lord Byron, that wine made 
him " savage instead of mirthful." The unhappy state of 
temper under which most persons awake on the morning 
subsequent to a debauch is, I believe, mainly owing to the 
morbid and irritable condition left in, and the depraved se- 
cretions acting upon, the delicate lining of the stomach ; a 
part, than which few, if any, in the whole animal economy 
have closer sympathies with our moral nature. Hence may 
be derived an additional argument, if such were needed, in 
favor of temperance both in meat and drink, and one espe- 
cially applicable to those of excitable feelings. 

There are certain conditions of the nervous system at- 
tended with uncommon irascibility. In some morbid states 
of the brain, exceeding irritability, with frequent and un- 
controllable outbreaks of anger, are apt to be displayed ; as 
at the commencement of acute hydrocephalus in children, 
and <5f other inflammatory affections of this organ. A large 
proportion of epileptic subjects are morbidly irritable, and 
liable to strong agitations of passion 5 or, as said by Esqui- 
rol, exceedingly susceptible, irascible, ungovernable. 

Insanity, at its commencement, is very often marked by 
impatience, irritability, and bursts of anger, and in its pro- 
gress perhaps by maniacal rage or fury, either continued, 
or happening only at certain times of the day, or monthly, 
or at particular seasons. Some cases of mania consist of 
one almost uninterrupted fit of violent "anger against every 
body and every thing. Or the insane person may exhibit a 
general moroseness of character, or a malignant hatred to- 
ward, and a disposition to inflict cruelty and even death 



162 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

upon particular persons, especially such as are most near 
and dear to him in his rational mind. This strong propen- 
sity to fits of rage, and the destruction of life, sometimes 
constitutes the only evidence of insanity, the mind remain- 
ing in all other respects apparently rational, and the case is 
then classed under that variety of mental -aberration termed 
monomania. A case of this nature is related by M. Pinel, 
and cited by Dr. Prichard, which was clearly referrible to 
physical disease, probably of the nervous system. 

" A man who had previously followed a mechanical occu- 
pation, but was afterwards confined at Bicetre, experienced, 
at regular intervals, fits of rage ushered in by the following 
symptoms : At first he experienced a sensation of burning 
heat in the bowels, with an intense thirst and obstinate con- 
stipation ; this sense of heat spread by degrees over the 
breast, neck, and face, with a bright color ; sometimes it be- 
came still more intense, and produced violent and frequent 
pulsations in the arteries of those parts, as if they were go- 
ing to burst ; at last the nervous affection reached the brain, 
and then the patient was seized with the most irresistible 
sanguinary propensity ; and if he could lay hold of any 
sharp instrument, he was ready to sacrifice the first person 
that came in his way. In other respects he enjoyed the free 
exercise of his reason; even during these fits he replied 
directly to questions put to him, and showed no kind of in- 
coherence iu his ideas, no sign of delirium; he even deeply 
felt all the horror of his situation, and was often penetrated 
with remorse, as if he was responsible for this mad propen- 
sity. Before his confinement at Bicetre a fit of madness 



ANGER. 163 

seized him in his own house ; he immediately warned his 
wife of it, to whom he was much attached, and he had only 
time to cry out to her to run away lest he should put her 
to a violent death. At Bicetre there appeared the same fits 
of periodical fury, the same mechanical propensity to commit 
atrocious actions, directed very often against the inspector, 
whose mildness and compassion he was continually praising. 
This internal combat between a sane reason in opposition to 
sanguinary cruelty, reduced him to the brink of despair, and 
he has often endeavored to terminate by death this insup- 
portable struggle." 

There are certain states of the functions of the skin, 
which are accompanied with an extreme fretfulness of tem- 
per. In what are familiarly termed colds, and under the 
influence of our chilling easterly winds on the sea-coast, 
many persons become excessively irritable. At the com- 
mencement of some diseases of the lungs, a similar condition 
of moral feeling is displayed. And ' in disorders of the 
urinary system, a peculiarly anxious and irascible disposition 
of mind is very frequently discovered. 

Anger, arising out of conditions of our physical organi- 
zation, must, of course, be directed, not to its real cause, but 
toward things and persons without, and which have no agency 
in its production. Thus may we suspect and maltreat those 
nearest and dearest to us, for no other reason than that our 
stomachs or livers are not executing as they should do their 
respective offices. And most persons must, I think, have 
remarked how apt one is to dream of quarrelling with his 
friends when going to bed on an indigestible supper. It is 



164 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

plain, then, that the cook will often have far more concern 
in the domestic tranquillity of families, than human philoso- 
phy has yet suspected. And would this important function- 
ary but cultivate his art in reference to the facility of diges- 
tion, as well as to the gratification of the palate, he might 
contribute more to the happiness of society than nine-tenths 
of the boasted moral reformers of the time. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

FEAR. ITS DEFINITION. BEING ESSENTIAL TO SELF-PRESERVA- 
TION, IT BELONGS INSTINCTIVELY TO ALL ANIMALS. DIFFER- 
ENCE BETWEEN MORAL AND PHYSICAL COURAGE. CERTAIN 

CONDITIONS OF OUR BODILY ORGANS AND FUNCTIONS BEGET 

A MORBID TIMIDITY OF CHARACTER. CERTAIN INSTINCTS 

CONQUER FEAR. DELICATE AND NERVOUS CONSTITUTIONS 

ARE SOMETIMES ENDOWED WITH A REMARKABLE DEGREE OF 
COURAGE AND FIRMNESS. 

Fear, like anger, is grounded on the principle of self-preser- 
vation, though the preservative acts to which these two pas- 
sions incite are of a very different nature. Thus while anger 
is defensive and offensive, stimulating us to repel or assault 
and destroy the causes which threaten our safety or happi- 
ness, fear urges to avoidance or flight, and it is only when 
escape has become hopeless that our guardian instincts force 
us to resistance, or even attack. 

Fear being, as already said, based on the instinct of self- 
preservation, belongs of necessity to all animals ; and it will 
commonly be found bearing a direct relation to the feeble- 
ness and defencelessness of the individual, circumstances 



166 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

rendering it the more needful. It may be set down as a 
general truth, though like most general truths admitting af 
occasional exceptions, that a sense of weakness begets timid- 
ity, while a consciousness of strength imparts boldness of 
character. Hence it is that fear is more especially conspicu- 
ous in the female constitution ; I mean in all such circum- 
stances of danger as demand energy of resistance, or strength 
of physical action, for under real calamities and sufferings, 
where endurance alone is required, woman will oftentimes 
display a degree of firmness of which our own stronger sex 
might well be proud. Woman looks to the strong arm and 
bold spirit of man for protection and defence, while he turns 
to her more delicate and passive nature for consolation and 
support under those ills of life against which his courage is 
powerless and his strength vain. 

Different individuals are by nature more or less suscepti- 
ble to the action of fear. Some even from their early child- 
hood are notable for their cowardice, while others are equally 
so for their intrepidity. Habit and education, however, will 
certainly do a great deal toward conquering a native timor- 
ousncss of character. 

In our own species, courage admits of the distinction, 
generally recognized, into physical and moral. The former 
is constitutional, though habit, by its well known influence 
on the vital organism, operates to increase it. It is fre- 
quently called strength of nerve, and answers to the courage 
seen in the lower animals. The latter, or moral courage, 
presupposes a supremacy of the higher faculties, and is 
therefore peculiar to man. Thus the naturally timid, 



FEAR. 167 

pricked on by duty, honor, pride, have not rarely become 
bold and successful warriors. And the most delicate and 
effeminate in body, through the ascendant influence of their 
moral nature, have faced dangers and borne sufferings, un- 
der which naturally stouter hearts and firmer nerves would 
have quailed ; — have offered up their lives in the cause of 
truth, their honor, or their country. Hence may we account 
for the superior firmness always displayed in a just cause. 

" Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just." 

Moral courage belongs more especially to cultivated and 
intellectual man. His will, strengthened by new motives, 
learns to restrain the trembling nerve, and to subject the 
weaker flesh to the dominion of the braver spirit. But in 
the uncultivated and ignorant, it is the mere animal or brute 
courage that is chiefly exhibited. Therefore it is, that in 
difficult and hazardous undertakings, the greatest fortitude 
and perseverance are almost always manifested on the part 
of the leaders, whose resolution is strengthened by a higher 
intelligence and more weighty responsibility. 

Fear will oftentimes proceed rather from ignorance, or 
mistaken judgment unduly magnifying the hazard, than 
from any actual deficiency in fortitude. Familiarity with 
any particular danger, conformably to a law of the animal 
constitution, serves to lessen the apprehension of it, though 
not necessarily emboldening toward others of a dissimilar 
nature. The mariner looks calmly on the ocean tempest, 
which would strike dismay to the heart even of the consti- 



168 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tutionally far braver landsman. The physician, although 
he may be naturally timid, walks undisturbed amid the des- 
olating pestilence from which the hardiest courage flees in 
terror. And the delicate female, who would tremble and 
turn pale at even the sight or sound of a warlike instrument, 
might bear the pains of sickness and the approach of death, 
with more serenity and fortitude than the soldier of a hun- 
dred battles. 

G-ood health, as a general rule, conduces to boldness, 
while infirmity of body tends to beget a pusillanimity of 
character. There are very many morbid states of the sys- 
tem, which may so depress the courage as to transform even 
the most daring into cowards. Disorders of the stomach 
and liver are particularly apt to engender false apprehen- 
sions, and weaken the natural fortitude, much more so, as 
a general truth, than more dangerous, or even fatal maladies 
of the lungs. Agues, and other malarious diseases, almost 
always render their subjects timid and apprehensive. Dr. 
Macculloch tells us that fear is so remarkable a character 
in these affections, that in some parts of the Mediterranean, 
where they are endemic, the only name by which they are 
known to the common people, is Scanto, meaning fear or 
fright. Long continued exposure to the infection of inter- 
mittent fevers will oftentimes, of itself, occasion irresolutc- 
and timidity. 

■• A gentleman was exposed to the emanations from a 
drain <>r Bewer, which had become obstructed in his own 
house in London. lie was soon afterwards seized witli 
an r'L r i:c. although In; had not been out of the metropolis for 



FEAR. 169 

years. The ague was easily cured by the proper remedies ; 
but, for a long time afterwards, it harassed him in quite a 
different shape — namely, in that of a sudden dread or horror 
of — he knew not what. It usually recurred at the same 
hour of the day, and would last from two to three or four 
hours, during which . the individual suffered the miseries of 
the damned. I know hundreds of people who had been 
exposed to malaria in hot and unhealthy climates, and who 
were harassed, for years after their return to this country, 
by these periodical horrors."* There are some diseases, 
however, which through the unnatural stimulation they pro- 
mote in the brain and nervous system, arouse even to a 
morbid exaltation of courage. There are also certain in- 
stincts which completely conquer the passion of fear. Thus 
the most timid mother, forgetful of herself, will rush into 
any peril, into fire or flood, to save the life of her offspring. 
It is said the hare will attack the eagle in defence of her 
young. 

Although, as before said, courage generally attends good 
health and physical vigor, and is wanting in the delicate, 
weakly, and sensitive, yet remarkable exceptions to this 
rule are sometimes encountered. Thus the pale and spare 
in body, weakly in constitution, and delicate in tempera- 
ment, will sometimes exhibit the most extraordinary energy 
firmness, and boldness of character. Disheartened by no 
obstacle, dismayed by no danger, they are fitted for the 
most difficult and daring enterprises. The rash and reso- 

* Johnson on Change of Air. 
8 



170 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

lute Cassius, of whom Csesar stood in such apprehension, is 
represented as frail and spare in body, and of a nervous 
temperament. And Caesar himself is recorded to have been 
thin and delicate, of a weakly constitution, and subject to 
epilepsy. The frail, sensitive, nervous female, who would 
shudder at the buzzing of a beetle, will sometimes be found 
adequate to the most daring acts of courage. There are 
many persons who always seem timid and irresolute under 
the ordinary and trifling dangers and difficulties of life, but 
display an exalted heroism on occasions of great trial and 
peril. It is a remarkable circumstance in the living actions, 
in the functions of mind, as well as body, that while slighter 
stimuli or influences are often yielded to, inordinate ones 
call forth a powerful and successful resistance. 

True courage is a most desirable quality of mind; it is 
promotive of health and happiness, and essential to, and 
by the Greeks and Romans was used synonymously with 
virtue. A timid man may be afraid to act right, may not 
dare to do his duty when opposed by dangers and diffi- 
culties. Of this virtue every body is ambitious, and none 
more so than the coward, as proved by his vainglorious af- 
fectation of it. Indeed, all of us are prone to assume both 
the intellectual and moral qualities in which we are most 
deficient. Thus, the fool affects wisdom, the strumpet 
modesty, the knave honesty, the niggard liberality, and the 
poltroon bravery. 



OHAPTEK XVII. 

FEAR CONTINUED. — -ACUTE FEAR. DESCRIBED. FASCINATION HAS 

BY SOME WRITERS BEEN ASCRIBED TO THE EXTRAVAGANT 

INFLUENCE OF FEAR. R.EMARKABLE EFFECTS IN THE CURE 

OF DISEASES THAT HAVE OFTEN FOLLOWED EXCESSIVE 
FRIGHT. 

Fear, like the other passions, is exhibited in various shades 
or degrees. It may be slight and transient, or so aggravated 
as completely to dethrone the judgment, and jeopard, not 
only the health, but even the existence of its subject. 

Fear is one of the most painful of the passions, and its 
effects, both on the mental and bodily functions are truly 
astonishing. Under its powerful influence the fiercest 
animals are rendered gentle and subservient to our will and 
purposes. 

In acute fear, the effects induced on the physical or- 
ganization and its functions are very remarkable, and often- 
times exceedingly distressing. The respiration becomes 
immediately and strikingly affected. Thus, on the first im- 
pulse of the passion, owing to a spasmodic contraction of 
the diaphragm, a sudden inspiration takes place, directly 



172 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

succeeded by an incomplete expiration ; the latter being, 
as it would seem, interrupted, or cut short by a spasm of 
the throat, windpipe, or lungs. Hence arises the irregular 
and convulsive breathing so characteristic of extreme fear. 
Under its action the respiration almost always grows short, 
rapid, and tremulous, — as may be seen in the inferior ani- 
mals when frightened, — and a painful sense of suffocation 
is experienced in the chest. The voice becomes embar- 
rassed, trembles, and, in consequence of the diminution and 
inspissation of the secretions of the mouth and throat, is 
dry, husky, thick, and unnatural. Even temporary speech- 
lessness may be induced under the first shock of this 
passion. 

" Obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus hsesit." 

The heart, likewise, suffers severely from the influence 
of acute fear. It becomes oppressed, constricted ; flutters 
and palpitates, and is variously agitated ; and the pulse is 
consequently small, feeble, rapid, and oftentimes irregular. 

The viscera of the abdomen, too, not unfrcqucntly expe- 
rience disagreeable sensations, unnatural or spasmodic con- 
tractions, and a morbid increase of their secretions. Some- 
times vomiting, but oftener a diarrhoea, perhaps involuntary, 
takes place ; and jaundice has, in occasional instances, 
quickly followed its operation. The urine, also, is aug- 
mented, pale or limpid, and the desire to void it becomes 
frequent, urgent, and many times irresistible. 

The blood, as might be anticipated, abandons the sur- 



FEAR. 173 

face, the face turns pallid, and the skin becomes universally 
cold, contracted, and rough, like goose-flesh, and as a conse- 
quence of this contraction, the hairs growing from it are 
elevated, or in the common phrase, stand on end, or if not, 
they seem as though they did to the affrighted individual. 
Chills often spread themselves over the surface, or over por- 
tions of it, sometimes as it were in streams ; and cold sweats, 
partial or general, not unusually break forth. About the 
forehead, especially, a cold, dewy sweat will frequently be 
seen from the influence of great fear. 

Partial tremors, as of the limbs, or a general shuddering 
and shaking, and chattering of the teeth, as under extreme 
cold, or in the first stage of a paroxysm of ague, are also com- 
mon phenomena. Ague, in fact, is derived from a Grothic 
word {agis) : meaning terror, on account of the similarity of 
effects between it and this passion. It is worthy to be 
noted here, that these same symptoms produced by fear, 
when the result of morbid physical states, are apt to be con- 
nected with an unnatural degree of timidity or apprehension. 
On the effect of agues in producing such conditions of mind 
I have previously remarked. And I feel well satisfied that 
we possess less courage if chilled and shivering under the 
influence of cold, than when the surface is warm and com- 
fortable, and the blood plays freely in its extreme vessels. 
But to proceed with the physical manifestations of fear : — 
Under its forcible action the eyes glare wildly, as though 
they would start from their sockets, and the whole counte- 
nance is drawn into a painful and repulsive expression. A 
convulsive sobbing, accompanied by a profuse secretion of 



174 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tears, and in delicate and sensitive females even severe par- 
oxysms of hysterics will not rarely ensue. The muscular 
system may likewise become strongly convulsed, or its ener- 
gies be temporarily suspended, and the individual be ren- 
dered dumb and motionless: In extreme cases the whole 
chest, with the upper part of the abdomen, or region of the 
stomach, are affected with an agonizing sense of constriction, 
and fainting often supervenes. 

The depressing effects of fear just described are not un- 
commonly succeeded by reaction ; anger perhaps being 
aroused toward the cause of alarm, and calling forth extrav- 
agant muscular efforts to repel or destroy it. Few of our 
passions, in truth, long maintain their simple and original 
character, but others, and of a different nature, are engen- 
dered by, and become blended with them. And that such 
should be the case would seem, in many instances, to be 
even necessary to our welfare ; the newly-awakened passion 
serving to counteract the threatening consequences of the 
primary one. Thus will the excitement of anger act as a 
cordial to the depression of fear ; and the depression of fear, 
on the other hand, as a wholesome sedative to the excitement 
of anger. 

Generally, as was before observed, the first impulse of 
simple fear, when the muscles retain their powers, is to pro- 
voke flight, and which is often precipitated with a degree of 
force which would have bfcen quite impossible in a more tran- 
quil condition of mind. This act is truly instinctive, and 
therefore irresistible, except under the counter-working in- 
fluence of some other passion. 13 ut when escape is found 



FEAR. 175 

impracticable, then will the individual be often driven to the 
most fierce and desperate resistance, and thus even the 
greatest cowards have sometimes acquired the fame . of 

heroes. 

" To be furious, 
Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood, 
The dove will peck the estridge." 

Fear, in its most aggravated degree, acquires the name 
of terror ■ and, under certain circumstances, and in certain 
constitutions, remarkable results have followed its strong im- 
pression on the nervous system. That peculiar condition 
which it has been supposed some animals have the power of 
producing in certain others, called fascination, has by many 
heen ascribed to the agency of terror, which paralyzing, as 
is thought, all voluntary muscular action in the victim, ren- 
ders him an easy prey to his destroyer. 

That some species of serpents possess this fascinating 
influence over birds — even of forcing them, by a gradual and 
irresistible movement, actually to fly into their devouring 
jaws — is not merely a popular belief, but has been main- 
tained by those whose names sustain a prominent place in 
the annals of science. The following citation relating to 
this subject is from M. Broussais, an author whom I have 
before quoted, and whose writings were at one time held in 
no ordinary repute by many medical men of high rank, both 
in Europe and America. It certainly shows an easy faith, 
and a strange process of reasoning in its support. It is 
brought in under the head of instinct 



176 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

" If we examine instinct in tlie prey threatened by the 
voracity of the snake, we discover something very extraordi- 
nary. "What is the power which compels the tomtit, perched 
upon a neighboring bush, to sacrifice itself for the gratifica- 
tion of the wants of an animal creeping upon the ground, at 
a distance from it ? The reptile obstinately pursues it with 
its looks. So long as the bird does not perceive the snake 7 
it runs no risk ; but if the former rests its eyes for a few 
moments on those of its pursuer, all is lost, for it will be- 
come its prey. The bird is terrified — it cannot abstain 
from looking fixedly at the snake — it flies from branch to 
branch, as if with a view of escaping, and yet it gradually 
approaches its enemy. This latter continues gazing at it, 
presenting, at the same time, an open mouth, and the victim 
finally flies of itself into it. These are not mere fables, but 
facts, which few shepherds have not had occasion to notice. 
The public papers have lately detailed the manner in which 
a boa-constrictor, conveyed to Europe in an English or 
American ship, was fed. The journalist relates, that those 
who took care of this monstrous snake, when they conceived 
that it was hungry, opened its iron cage, and presented to it 
a goat (a number of which had been shipped for its use) ; as 
soon as the animal perceived its prey, it unfolded itself, and 
looked at it fixedly, with open mouth. The goat, after hesi- 
tating some time, as if undecided between the instinct 
of self-preservation and that attracting it towards the mon- 
ster, precipitated itself head-foremost into the living gulf 
which was to serve as its tomb." 

tt I do not sec," observes the same author, in relation to 



FEAR. 177 

his above cited remarks, "why an animal, destined to be- 
come the prey of another, should not be compelled to yield 
itself up, when this latter is deprived of other means requi- 
site for seizing it. It is generally admitted that a number 
of animals are born only to be devoured. The end of 
destruction is as much in nature as that of formation, and 
the acts of instinct which tend to deliver up a prey to its 
enemy, are as natural as others, the object of which is to 
avoid danger, or gratify an appetite. Now it appears evi- 
dent that, in order to attain these ends, the Author of all 
things has invariably made use of the same means, namely, 
instinctive impulses." * 

Every other writer on the subject of instincts, so far at 
least as I am informed, has regarded their final purpose to 
be preservative only ; but the present author appears to have 
introduced a new one, leading its possessor into destruction 
for another's support. In another place, Broussais, in the 
most unequivocal manner, refers fascination to the influence 
of terror. 

Facts, were their details to be relied upon, are certainly 
not wanting to substantiate such a fascinating influence in 
serpents. Scarce a peasant, or even a country schoolboy, 
but can bring some instance toward its support. That birds 
are sometimes seen fluttering in apparent alarm about and 
near these reptiles, will not be disputed. But this is often- 
times only in defence of their nest which the snake is invad- 
ing, they being actuated by an instinct whose end is the 

* Physiology applied to Pathology, 

8* 



178 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

preservation of the species, instead of one urging them to 
destruction for the support of their enemy. This power of 
fascination then, although far from being established, can 
hardly be ranked among the mere superstitions of ignorance 
and credulity. The propensity, almost resistless, which 
some persons feel when on the verge of a precipice, to cast 
themselves down into inevitable destruction, is equally as 
strange as that a bird should be impelled by an invincible 
disposition to fly into the deadly jaws of its devourer. 

But to resume my principal topic. Extreme terror will, 
in certain instances, instead of depressing and paralyzing 
the nervous power, arouse it into new and astonishing ac- 
tion. We read that it has even caused the dumb to speak, 
and the paralytic to walk ; and that the most painful and 
obstinate diseases have been known suddenly to yield under 
its potent influence. It is related in Herodotus that during 
the storm of Sardis, "a Persian meeting Croesus was, 
through ignorance of his person, about to kill him. The 
king, overwhelmed by his calamity, took no care to avoid 
the blow or escape death ; but his dumb son, when he saw 
the violent designs of the Persian, overcome with astonish- 
ment and terror, exclaimed aloud, ' Oh, man, do not kill 
Croesus!' This was the first time he had ever articulated, 
but he retained the faculty of speech from this event as long 
as lie lived/' We have instances enough, however, and of a 
less apocryphal character, of the remarkable curative effects 
of extravagant fear. Djr. Whytt observes, that it will fre- 
quently put a stop to convulsive motions and spasms, and 
sometimes suceecd after other remedies have failed, and 



FEAR. 179 

gives a striking. instance in illustration.* A common me- 
thod of stopping hiccup is by startling the person affected. 
Hemorrhage will sometimes be checked by the action of 
sudden fright. 

Van Swieten records the case of a man who, under the 
influence of sudden terror, recovered from iieniiplegy, or 
palsy of one half of the body, that had afflicted him for years. 
" A woman who had been paralytic from the age of six to 
forty-four, suddenly recovered the perfect use of her limbs, 
when she was very much terrified during a severe thunder 
storm, and was making violent efforts to escape from a 
chamber in which she had been left alone. A man who had 
many years been paralytic, recovered in the same manner 
when his house was on fire."f Gout has also immediately 
disappeared through the operation of unexpected fright. 
An old author relates of one of his patients, suffering under 
a paroxysm of this disease, that having his feet and legs 
wrapped in cataplasms of turnips, a hog entering his room 
and beginning to feed on the turnips, so alarmed him that 
he began to run and jump, and all his gouty pains straight- 
way vanished. 

Intermittent fevers or agues have likewise disappeared 
from the strong impulse of this same passion. Dr. Fordyce 
tells of a man afflicted with a fever of this description, that 
his brother having led him to walk by the edge of a mill- 
dam, pushed him suddenly into the water ; and which, as he 

* Observations on Nervous Diseases, &c. • 

t Abercrombie on the Brain ; cited from Dieraerbroeck. 



180 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

was unable to swim, naturally put him into a very great 
fright. He was speedily, however, taken out, and from that 
time forth had no further paroxysm of his disease.* A gen- 
tleman, laboring under an obstinate ague, and who had a 
great dread of rats, happened to be shut up in a room with 
one of them, which jumping upon him, caused such fright as 
completely to expel his ague. Among the remedies of inter- 
mittent fevers, Dr. Cullen ranks an impression of horror. 
The many charms, and hateful and disgusting superstitious 
remedies which have been so often employed, and sometimes 
successfully in agues, doubtless operate through the impres- 
sion of horror, dread, awe, which they produce on the mind. 
Such are spiders, the chips of a gallows, or the halter of an 
executed criminal worn round the neck. 

" Elias Ashmole, in his Diary, April 11, 1681, has en- 
tered, ' I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir, 
and hung three spiders about my neck, and drove my ague 
away. Deo Gratias !' "f 

How the classical remedy for a quartan ague, of placing 
the fourth book of Homer's Iliad under the patient's head, 
operates, I am not prepared to explain. 

To show the effect of a superstitious impression, — which 
must be a modification of fear, — upon the mind in the cure of 
the present disease, I will venture to cite the following inter- 
esting narrative, with which some of my readers arc doubtless 
already familiar. It relates to Sir John Holt, Lord Chief 

* Diesertatione on Fevera. 

f Pettigrew'S Medical Superstitions. 



FEAR. 181 

Justice of the Court of King's Bench, 1709, who in his 
youth appears to have been extremely wild. " Being once en- 
gaged with some of his rakish friends in a trip into the coun- 
try, in which they had spent all their money, it was agreed 
they should try their fortune separately. Holt arrived at 
an inn at the end of a straggling village, ordered his horse 
to be taken care of, bespoke a supper and a bed. He then 
strolled into the kitchen, where he observed a little girl of 
thirteen shivering with an ague. Upon making inquiry re- 
specting her, the landlady told him that she was her only 
child, and had been ill nearly a year, notwithstanding all the 
assistance she could procure for her from physic. He gravely 
shook his head at the doctors, bade her be under no further 
concern, for that her daughter should never have another 
fit. He then wrote a few unintelligible words in a court 
hand on a scrap of parchment, which had been the direction 
affixed to a hamper, and rolling it up, directed that it should 
be bound upon the girl's wrist, and there allowed to remain 
until she was well. The ague returned no more ; and Holt, 
having remained in the house a week, called for his bill. 
' Glod bless you, sir,' said the old woman, ' you're nothing in 
my debt, I'm sure. I wish, on the contrary, that I was able 
to pay you for the cure which you have made of my daugh- 
ter. Oh ! if I had had the happiness to see you ten months 
ago, it would have saved me forty pounds.' With pre- 
tended reluctance he accepted his accommodation as a re- 
compense, and rode away. Many years elapsed, Holt ad- 
vanced in his profession of the law, and went a circuit, as 
one of the judges of the Court of King's Bench, into the 



182 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

same county, where, among other criminals brought before 
him, was an old woman under a charge of witchcraft. To 
support this accusation, several witnesses swore that the pri- 
soner had a spell with which she could either cure such 
cattle as were sick, or destroy those that were well, and that 
in the use of this spell she had been lately detected, and 
that it was now ready to be produced in court. Upont his 
statement the judge desired it might be handed up to him. 
It was a dirty ball, wrapped round with several rags, and 
bound with packthread. These coverings he carefully re- 
moved, and beneath them found a piece of parchment, which 
he immediately recognized as his own youthful fabrication. 
For a few moments he remained silent — at length recollect- 
ing himself, he addressed the jury to the following effect : — 
' Gentlemen, I must now relate a particular of my life, 
which very ill suits my present character and the station in 
which I sit ; but to conceal it would be to aggravate the folly 
for which I ought to atone, to endanger innocence, and to 
countenance superstition. This bauble, which you suppose 
to have the power of life and death, is a senseless scroll 
which I wrote with my own hand and gave to this woman, 
whom for no other reason you accuse as a witch.' He then 
related the particulars of the transaction, with such an effect 
upon the minds of the people, that his old landlady was the 
last person tried for witchcraft in that county."* 

Epileptic fits — the frequent result of a false or morbid 
religious excitement or enthusiasm, aided by the principle 

* Pettigrew'fl Medical Superstitions, 



FEAR. 183 

of sympathy, in the feeble-minded and ignorant — may often 
"be counteracted through the passion of fear. An intelligent 
minister of Shetland, in Scotland, being much annoyed, and 
the devotions of his church impeded, on his first introduction 
into the country, by the frequent occurrence of these con- 
vulsions, " obviated their repetition, by assuring his parish- 
ioners that no treatment was more effectual than immersion 
in cold water ; and as his kirk was fortunately contiguous 
to a fresh-water lake, he gave notice that attendants should 
be at hand, during divine service, to insure the proper 
means of cure. The sequel need scarcely be told. The 
fear of being carried out of the church, and into the water, 
acted like a charm — not a single naiad was made, and the 
worthy minister, for many years, had reason to boast of one 
of the best regulated congregations in Shetland."* 

The cure of these convulsions in the parish of North- 
maven, in which they were once very frequent, is said to 
have been effected by a rough fellow of a kirk officer tossing 
a woman affected with them, and with whom he had been 
often troubled, into a ditch of water. She was never known 
to be thus affected afterwards, and the disease was kept off 
in others by a dread of the like treatment. 

Boerhaave appears to have operated successfully with 
the passion of fear, in the house of the poor, at Haerlem, in 
the cure of convulsions, which, through the force of imita- 
tion — a propensity so strong in our nature — had spread to 

* Quoted in Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from Hibbert's 
Description of the Shetland Islands, &c. 



184 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

almost all the boys and girls who were its inmates. All 
medical treatment having proved unsuccessful in the hands 
of the physicians of the place, application was made to 
Boerhaave, who, observing the manner in which the fits 
spread, determined to try the effects of a remedy which 
would act strongly upon the imagination. He accordingly 
had several portable furnaces, on which were placed burn- 
ing coals, and iron hooks, of a figure suited for his purpose ; 
and then gave directions that, as all medicines had failed, 
and he knew of no other remedy, the next one seized with a 
paroxysm, whether boy or girl, should be burnt on the 
naked arm with the heated iron, even to the bone. All be- 
came so much terrified at the thought of this cruel remedy, 
that they struggled with all their might to keep off the fits, 
and were completely successful. 

Dr. Cooke cites, from the eighteenth volume of the 
Medical and Physical Journal, the following instance of 
the disappearance of epilepsy from sudden fright. " A 
lady in the prime of life, of robust habit, was for four years 
afflicted with this complaint in a violent degree — the pa- 
roxysms returning three or four times a week, continuing 
for some hours, and leaving the patient in a state of stupor. 
A variety of medicines had been tried in vain, and the case 
was considered hopeless, when, on receiving a dreadful men- 
tal shock, by the circumstance of her daughter being acci- 
dentally burnt to death, the disease entirely and finally left 
her." 

Settled insanity has been removed by immoderate 
fright. An old remedy, indeed, for this disease, and one 



FEAR. 185 

of high authority, was to terrify the maniac by throwing 
him into the water, and keeping him there till nearly 
drowned. Esquirol relates the case of a lady under his 
charge, who believed she was damned, and had the devil in- 
side of her, being cured by the threat of cold baths, of 
which she had the utmost dread, every time she gave herself 
up to her peculiar insane notions and fears. He also gives 
instances of the complete cure of furious maniacs, through 
terror of the red-hot iron, with which, as a remedial measure, 
they were about to be cauterized. 

In the thirty-first volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Re- 
view, we read the following case, quoted from a Prussian 
Medical Journal : " A man, between thirty and forty years 
of age, had been, from the year 1827 to 1831, affected with 
an extreme degree of insanity, amounting almost to idiocy, 
and alternating with periodic fits of raving madness. His 
condition bordered on bestiality, and none dared to ap- 
proach him in his maniacal paroxysms. His case was 
deemed quite hopeless ; and, for the two following years, he 
vegetated, so to speak, in the public lunatic house of the 
place. A fire having accidentally broken out near his cell, 
his mental powers, which had so long slumbered, were sud- 
denly aroused ; and Dr. Ollenroth, upon visiting him a few 
days afterwards, found him perfectly intelligent, and assidu- 
ously occupied with some domestic arrangements. He had 
no recollection of his former condition. All that he remem- 
bered, was simply that, on the approach of the flames, he 
felt himself seized with an indescribable sense of terror, that 
he sprung up from his bed, and that he suddenly regained 
his intelligence." 



186 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Many minor affections are also.known to be at once re- 
moved or suspended, under the strong impression of fear, as 
toothache, and other nervous pains ; hypochondriasis, sea- 
sickness, etc. 



CHAPTEK XVIII. 



FEAR CONTINUED.- — DEATH IS SOMETIMES THE CONSEQUENCE OF 
EXTRAVAGANT FEAR.—- VARIOUS PAINFUL DISEASES ARE NOT 

UNFREQUENTLY THE CONSEQUENCE OF ITS OPERATION. 

THE TERRORS AND MORBID EXCITEMENTS OF RELIGION ARE 
OFTENTIMES FOLLOWED BY THE MOST MELANCHOLY EFFECTS 

ON MIND AND BODY. THESE EFFECTS MAY BECOME GREATLY 

EXTENDED THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF IMITATION OR SYM- 
PATHY. TERROR MAY OPERATE THROUGH THE MOTHER ON 

HEE, UNBOR% OFFSPRING. ITS EFFECTS ON THE HAIR AND 

DIFFERENT SECRETIONS. THE FEARS AWAKENED IN THE 

IMAGINATION DURING SLEEP, WHEN FREQUENT AND IMMODE- 



Terror is sometimes instantly fatal, at once destroying 
the nervous energy, and suppressing the action of the heart ; 
or it may bring on hemorrhages or convulsions, quickly ter- 
minating in death. Children and females being generally 
more sensitive and susceptible in their nervous system, are 
most liable to become the victims of fear. 

Montaigne informs us, that at the siege of St. Pol, a 
town in France, " a gentleman was seized with such a fright, 
that he sunk down dead in the breach without any wound." 



188 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Marcellus Donatus tells of a child who instantly fell 
dead in a field on seeing, in the morning twilight, two per- 
sons clothed in black suddenly appear by his side. Another 
child was so frightened by the report of a cannon from a 
vessel while he was bathing in the sea, that he instantly fell 
into convulsions, and died in fifteen minutes. 

An old writer relates of a nun, that she was so terrified 
on seeing herself surrounded by hostile soldiers with drawn 
swords, that the blood suddenly flowed from all the outlets 
of the body, and she immediately perished in their presence. 

Broussais gives the case of a lady, who, on feeling a living 
frog fall into her bosom from the claws of a bird of prey, 
while she was sitting on the grass, was instantly seized with 
such a profuse bleeding from the lungs, that she survived 
but a few minutes. 

A case is told by Pechlin* of a lady, who^ upon looking 
at the comet of 1681, through a telescope, became so affected 
with terror, that she died in a few days. 

Predictions of death are sometimes punctually fulfilled 
through the influence of fear upon the imagination. Lord 
Littleton, it seems to be well authenticated, died at the 
exact moment at which his fancied vision had forewarned 
him his death would take place. The superstitious subjects 
of such hallucinations have sometimes been preserved from 
death, which they believed was to happen at a fixed time, 
and for which their terrors seemed to be fast preparing 
them, by putting back the hands of the clock, or, as in the 

*" Okserv. Med., lib. iii, observ. 23. 



PEAR. 189 

case related by Dr. Darwin, by administering a dose of 
opium, so as to cause the person to sleep beyond the pre- 
dicted period. 

It is related of a person sentenced to be bled to death, 
that though the execution of the sentence was only feigned, 
by causing warm water, after his eyes were blinded, to trickle 
down his arm, yet the fearful impression on his imagina- 
tion that the blood was flowing from his veins, destroyed 
his life as effectually as if the punishment had been actually 
accomplished. The fear of the axe, too, has sometimes 
caused death as surely as its fall. A malefactor, as we read, 
being condemned to decapitation, a reprieve arrived just as 
his head had been laid upon the block, but life was found to 
be already extinguished. " In Lesinsky's voyage round the 
world, there is an account of a religious sect in the Sand- 
wich Islands, who arrogate to themselves the power of pray- 
ing people to death. Whoever incurs their displeasure, 
receives notice that the homicide litany is about to begin ; 
and such are the effects of imagination, that the very notice 
is frequently sufficient with these poor people to produce 
the effect."* 

u Some young girls went one day a little way out of 
town to see a person who had been executed, and who was 
hung in chains. One of them threw several stones at the 
gibbet, and at last struck the body with such violence as to 
make it move ; at which the girl was so much terrified, that 
she imagined the dead person was alive, came down from 

* Cited by Dr. Reid, in his Essays on Nervous Diseases. 



190 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the gibbet, and ran after her. She hastened home, and not 
being able to conquer the idea, fell into strong convulsions, 
and died."* 

The following case from the same author just quoted, 
will serve to show the hazard of operating upon the timidity 
of children, as a means of punishment : 

" A schoolmistress, for some trifling offence, most fool- 
ishly put a child into a dark cellar for an hour. The child 
was greatly terrified, and cried bitterly. Upon returning 
to her parents in the evening, she burst into tear,s, and 
begged that she might not be put into the cellar; the 
parents thought this extremely odd, and assured her that 
there was no danger of their being guilty of so great an act 
of cruelty ; but it was difficult to pacify her, and when put 
to bed she passed a restless night. On the following day 
she had fever, during which she frequently exclaimed, ' Do 
not put me in the cellar.' The fourth day after, she was 
taken to Sir A. Cooper, in a high state of fever, with deli- 
rium, frequently muttering, ' Pray don't put me in the cel- 
lar.' When Sir Astlcy inquired the reason, he found that 
the parents had learned the punishment to which she had 
been subjected. He ordered what was likely to relieve 
her. but she died in a week after this unfeeling conduct." 

Terror, although, as seen, it may occasion instant or 
Bpeedy death, yet is more apt to be followed by various dis- 
orders of mind and body, either slight and transient, or 
serious and lasting. Deafness, dumbness, blindness, loss of 

* IYuij'ivw : cited from Platerua. 



FEAR. 191 

memory, dropsies, erysipelas, and various cutaneous erup- 
tions have speedily ensued to fright. 

" Some time ago," says Zimmerman, " I had the care of 
a poor woman of seventy years of age, who had an erysipe- 
latous fever, which was very long and dangerous in its 
course, and was apparently brought on by the dread of an 
apparition. This poor woman lived in a lonely house which 
had the reputation of being haunted, and she one night 
fancied she saw in the person of a large mastiff, the much- 
talked-of spirit. Her terror was excessive, she shrieked 
out and fell down in a state of insensibility. When she 
came to herself she complained of anxiety, sickness at the 
stomach, and extreme headache, the next day she had con- 
siderable fever, and on the day following her head was ex- 
ceedingly inflamed, and a great part of it covered with an 
erysipelatous eruption."* 

Severe fainting fits are not unfrequently its consequence, 
and which have continued rapidly succeeding each other 
for hours. And in some instances a morbid nervous mobi- 
lity will be engendered by it, from which the unfortunate 
sufferer never wholly recovers, remaining liable ever after- 
terwards to palpitations, faintings, or nervous tremors, on 
the slightest alarm, and more particularly if it be* of the 
nature of that which awakened the primary disturbance. 
Operating upon females, it will not unusually provoke pa- 
roxysms of hysterics, and even leave a settled disposition to 
them in the system. 

* On Experience in Physic, vol. 2, pp. 278-9. 



192 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Catalepsy, that remarkable and rare nervous affection, 
in which there is an entire suspension of sensibility and 
voluntary motion, the limbs at the same time remaining 
fixed in any position, however restrained, in which they may 
be placed, has occasionally been produced by terror. In 
nervous and susceptible females, it has been most often thus 
excited ; but it has happened even in the more hardy of our 
own sex, as shown in the following, and striking case, cited 
by Sir Alexander Crichton, either of catalepsy or ecstasy, 
affections very similar to each other, differing principally in 
the inflexible and rigid state of the muscles in the latter. 
" George G-rokatzki, a Polish soldier, deserted from his re- 
giment in the harvest of the year 1677. He was discover- 
ed a few days afterwards, drinking and making merry in a 
common alehouse. The moment he was apprehended he 
was so much terrified that he gave a loud shriek, and im- 
mediately was deprived of the power of speech. When 
brought to a court-martial, it was impossible to make him 
articulate a word ; nay, he then became as immovable as a 
statue, and appeared not to be conscious of any thing which 
was going forward. In the prison to which he was conduct- 
ed he neither ate nor drank. The officers and the priests 
at first threatened him, and afterwards endeavored to soothe 
and calm him, but all their efforts were in vain. He re- 
mained senseless and immovable. His irons were struck 
off, and he was taken out of the prison, but he did not move. 
Twenty days and nights were passed in this way, during 
which he took no kind of nourishment, nor had any natural 
evacuation ; he then gradually sunk and died." 



FEAR. 193 

Chorea, or St. Vitus's dance, is another nervous affection 
which has sometimes been caused by fright. A peculiar 
nervous affection was brought on in Mr. John Hunter, by 
great anxiety of mind (and mental anxiety must be re- 
garded but as a modification of fear). It consisted in a 
feeling as though he were suspended in the air, " of his 
body being much diminished in size, and of every motion of 
the head and limbs, however slight, being both very exten- 
sive, and accomplished with great rapidity." 

Epilepsy has very often been induced by sudden fright, 
and a permanent tendency to it been left in the system. A 
celebrated G-erman physician asserts, that in six out of four- 
teen epileptic patients under his care, in the hospital of St. 
Mark, at Yienna, the disease had been caused by terror. 
A man travelling alone by night, encountered a large dog 
in a narrow path, and fancying himself seized by the animal, 
he reached home in extreme terror, and on the following 
morning was attacked with a violent fit of epilepsy, of which 
he afterwards had many returns. "A young man, having 
witnessed some of the dreadful events at Paris, on the hor- 
rible tenth of August, became affected immediately with 
this disorder." A maid-servant of Leipsic, while endeavor- 
ing to untie some knots, got the impression that one of 
them was made by a sorceress, and became so terrified in 
consequence, that she was immediately seized with a fit of 
epilepsy.* 

In young children, convulsions and epilepsy are brought 

* Cooke on Nervous Diseases. 



194 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

on with great facility under the operation of strongly and 
suddenly awakened fear. Tissot, referring to the foolish 
and dangerous practice of frightening children in sport, ob- 
serves : " One half of those epilepsies which do not depend 
on such causes as might exist before the child's birth, are 
owing to this detestable custom ; and it cannot be too much 
inculcated into children, never to frighten one another; a 
point which persons intrusted with their education ought 
to have the strictest regard to."* 

Religion, when perverted from its true purpose of hope 
and consolation, and employed as an instrument of terror ; 
when, instead of being gentle, peaceful, and full of love, it 
assumes a gloomy, austere, and threatening tone, may be- 
come productive of a train of nervous complaints of the most 
melancholy and even dangerous nature. Religion, in its 
widest signification, has been defined, " An impressive sense 
of the irresistible influence of one or more superior Beings 
over the concerns of mortals, which may become beneficial 
or inimical to our welfare." Now, according to the fancied 
character and requisitions of the Power or Powers it wor- 
ships, it may be the parent of fear, cruelty, and intolerance, 
or of trust, charity, benevolence, and all the loftiest feelings 
that adorn our nature. The austere bigot who owns a God 
of terror and vengeance, becomes the slave of the direst pas- 
sions. All who differ from his creed are to be hated as the 
enemies of heaven, and the outcasts of its mercy ; and he 
may even persuade himself that to inflict upon them bodily 

* Avis au Peuple, &c. 



FEAR. 195 

tortures is an acceptable religious duty. This spirit of 
gloomy fanaticism has been one of the severest scourges of 
our species. No human sympathy has been able to with- 
stand its merciless power. It has set the parent against the 
child, and the child against the parent, and has blasted every 
tie of domestic affection. Even those naturally possessed 
of the most tender dispositions have become so hardened 
under the customs of religious bigotry, as to look without 
the least feeling of compassion on the pangs of the heretic 
amid the flames, and who, in their faith, was to pass imme- 
diately from his temporal into the indescribable agonies of 
eternal fires. " I was once," says Dr. Cogan, " passing- 
through Moorfields with a young lady, aged about nine or 
ten years, born and educated in Portugal, but in the Protes- 
tant faith, and observing a large concourse of people assem- 
bled round a pile of faggots on fire, I expressed a curiosity 
to know the cause. She very composedly answered, 1 1 sup- 
pose that it is nothing more than that they are going to burn 
a Jeiv." 1 Fortunately it was no other than roasting an ox 
upon some joyful occasion. What rendered this singularity 
the more striking, was the natural mildness and compassion 
of the young person's disposition. " # 

There is, perhaps, no enthusiastic infatuation which has 
been more harmful, both to mind and body, than that of re- 
ligion. The relentless and fearful passions awakened by a 
gloomy and vindictive religion, fraught with unimaginable 
future terrors, have been productive, alike in past and recent 

* Phi]o30} h : cal Treatise on the Passions. 



196 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

times, of the most melancholy disorders, both in the moral 
and physical constitution. Baron Haller speaks of supersti- 
tious piety as a very common cause of insanity, especially in 
those who picture to themselves the most terrible notions of 
a future state. The mind, especially if of a gloomy and en- 
thusiastic cast, dwells upon these frightful ideas until con- 
viction of their certainty becomes established. " An over- 
strained bigotry is, in itself, and considered in a medical 
point of view, a destructive irritation of the senses, which 
draws men away from the efficiency of mental freedom, and 
peculiarly favors the most injurious emotions. Sensual 
ebullitions, with strong convulsions of the nerves, appear 
sooner or later, and insanity, suicidal disgust of life, and in- 
curable nervous disorders, are but too frequently the conse- 
quences of a perverse, and, indeed, hypocritical zeal, which 
has ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of the Maenades 
and Cor} T bantes of antiquity, as under the semblance of re- 
ligion among the Christians and Mahomedans."* 

At the field-meetings that are annually held among us 
I have been witness to the most frightful nervous affections, 
as convulsions, epilepsy, hysteria, distressing spasms, violent 
contortions of the body, not only in females in whom, from 
their more sensitive and sympathetic temperament, such af- 
fections are most readily excited, but also in the more hardy 
and robust of our own sex. Even spectators, such as attend 
for the purpose of amusement or merriment, will oftentimes 
be overtaken by the same nervous disorders. But such 

* Hecker*fl Epidemics of the Middle Afros. 



FEAR. 197 

morbid affections are not peculiar to field-meetings ; they 
happen among all sects of religionists, who seek to make 
proselytes by appealing to the fears, rather than convincing 
the judgment ; affrighting the imagination with 

" damned ghosts, that doe in torments waile, 

And thousand feends, that doe them endlesse paine 
With fire and brimstone, which for ever shall remaine." 

Females, and, indeed, all persons of susceptible feelings 
and nervous habits, may suffer serious injury from being 
subjected to such superstitious terrors. Not only the dis- 
orders mentioned, but chorea, and other nervous maladies, 
and even confirmed insanity, have been their melancholy 
consequence. Dr. Prichard informs us, that several in- 
stances of mental alienation, from the cause we are con- 
sidering, have fallen within his own sphere of observation. 
" Some of these," says he, " have occurred among persons 
who had frequented churches or chapels where the ministers 
were remarable for a severe, impassioned, and almost impre- 
catory style of preaching, and for enforcing the terrors 
rather than setting forth the hopes and consolations which 
belong to the Christian religion."* 

In the report of the New-York State Lunatic Asylum, 
for 1847, we find, out of 1,609 patients — being the whole 
number received — in 173 the disease is imputed to religious 
anxiety, and in 33 to Millerism, a new cause of religious in- 
sanity. It is a remark of Esquirol, in his treatise on Mental 

* On Insanity, &c. 



198 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Maladies, &c, that insanity caused and maintained by re» 
ligious notions is seldom cured. But we have it on the 
same authority, that religious fanaticism and terrors, al- 
though formerly so frequent causes of insanity in France, 
have now lost their influence there, and seldom produce the 
disorder. This, on his own account of the matter, would 
seem to be owing to the little religious feeling existing in 
France ; religion, as he informs us, only coming in as a 
usage in the most solemn acts of life ; no longer offering 
hope and consolation to the afflicted — its morality no longer 
guiding man in the difficult paths of life. Indeed he draws 
but a sad picture of his poor country. All sentiment is ab- 
sorbed in a cold selfishness. Domestic affection, respect, 
love, authority, mutual dependences, have ceased to exist. 
Each lives but for himself, and the present. Marriage ties 
are only pretences, entered into by the wealthy either to 
gratify their pride, or as a matter of speculation, and by the 
common people are altogether neglected. The children are 
injudiciously educated ; their passions are left unbridled, and 
licentious ; and the women are in no better predicament, 
being carried away by an insatiable appetite for romances, 
the toilet, frivolities, and so on. I 

It is said of the Society of Friends, in England, that 
they are in a great measure exempt from what is termed re- 
ligious insanity, which immunity has been explained on the 
character of their religion ; it being one of peace and chari- 
ty, they are but little exposed to those fanatical excitements 
and Buperstitious apprehensions which work so powerfully 
on the imaginations of many other Christian sects. 



FEAR. 199 

Instead of these mystical terrors, or following them, the 
religious visionary sometimes experiences a sort of ecstatic 
beatitude ; his morbid and overheated imagination enkin- 
dles an infuriated and wasting zeal, an impassioned and 
consuming holy love, often leading to the wildest extrava- 
gances of language and action, and the most melancholy 
consequences to the nervous system. Under the sacred 
garb of religion, sensual feelings are, I fear, too frequently 
concealed. The expressions and behavior of some of these 
heated enthusiasts, evince to the eye of sober reason, that 
they are devoured by carnal rather than spiritual fires — that 
their glowing mystical love is lighted at the flames of earth, 
not heaven. 

" This pretended spiritual love consumes the body more 
than if the patients really gave themselves up to the appetite 
of the senses, because the orgasm which excites it lasts conti- 
nually. I have observed that many of these unhappy people 
have become hypochondriacal, hysterical, stupid, and even 
maniacal. One patient after raving with this love, and burn- 
ing with an inward fire, was sometimes attacked with the 
most painful spasms, and sometimes with stupor, till at 
length she spit blood, became blind, dumb, and soon after- 
wards died. Some have died consumptive, others have be- 
come paralytic. 

" It is inconceivable how many complaints originate in 
monastic life, from the religious exercises to which the dif- 
ferent orders are subjected. The nuns seem to give into 
these extravagances much more easily than the men, on 
account of their greater delicacy and irritability. The ef- 



200 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

fects of these spiritual reflections are a heaviness or dizzi- 
ness of the head, paleness, weakness, palpitation of the 
heart, fainting fits ; till at length, when the imagination is 
disordered to a certain degree, all discernment and judgment 
seem to be at an end, and these unhappy people become, in 
the true sense of the word, visionaries."* 

Women of an imaginative temperament, and whose re- 
flective and reasoning powers are limited, are most suscep- 
tible to fervid and fantastical religious impressions. And 
it is said that when their charms begin 'to fade, and they 
cease to be admired, and their worldly influence is conse- 
quently on the wane, they are then most prone to become 
the subjects of holy reveries ; being either transported by a 
fervid zeal and enthusiasm, or else — overwhelmed by terror, 
gloom, despair — they pass into some form of insanity, gene- 
rally either religious monomania or demonomania. Wo- 
man, Esquirol tells us in the work previously cited, is more 
nervous and imaginative, more operated upon by fear, more 
susceptible of religious notions, more inclined to the mar- 
vellous and more liable to melancholy than our own sex. 
Having reached a certain age, abandoned by the world, and 
passing into ennui and sadness, she next sinks into melan- 
choly, often religious melancholy; and sometimes — when 
the mind is prepared by weakness, ignorance, and prejudice, 
for such a result — into demonomania, or a fancied demonia- 
cal possession. These observations may be literally true of 
the women of France, but to women in general they will 
hardly apply without some reservation. 

* Zimmermann on experience in Physic. 



FEAR. 201 

That women, as has been remarked, when they grow old 
and cease to be admired, and worldly excitements are fail- 
ing them, turn their thoughts heavenward, and seek enjoy- 
ment in religious reveries, is doubtless often true. Butf is it 
not so with us all? Seldom do we dedicate the first Sow- 
ings of the cup of life, the sprightly streams of our youth, 
to religion. Such would be indeeed a praiseworthy offering. 
No ! we cling to earth and its joys as long as they will serve 
us, — till age begins to palsy our powers, and deaden our sus- 
ceptibilities, and then seek in holy aspirations for the felicity 
which earthly objects can no longer afford :■ — In the true self- 
ishness of our nature we get all we can out of the present 
world, and then turn saints for the sake of what we may get 
in the next. 

The convulsive and other morbid nervous affections, the 
consequence of religious terrors and fanaticism, have, in 
different countries, and at various periods of the world, so 
spread themselves through the power of sympathy or imi- 
tation, as to hold a place in history among the important 
epidemics that have afflicted the human species. Demono- 
mania, which is most commonly connected with the terrors 
of religion, has, through a sort of moral contagion, or the 
principle of imitation, become at times so extended as to 
constitute an epidemic. It is a remark of Esquirol, that 
delirium usually assumes the character of the ideas preva- 
lent at the period when the insanity breaks forth ; and that 
demoniacal possession is therefore most frequent when reli- 
gion becomes the principal topic of interest and discussion, 
and religious ideas therefore principally occupy the mind. 
9* 



202 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The mental alienation which affected the Convuhionaires 
of St. Medard, beginning in the year 1727, and becoming so 
extensile an epidemic in France, lasting for fifty-nine years, 
had its origin in religious superstition. The history of this ■ 
sect exhibits human nature in the most ridiculous and 
humiliating point of view. Sometimes the convulsionists 
bounded from the ground like fish out of water ; " and this 
was so frequently imitated at a later period, that the women 
and girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not 
wishing to appear indecent, put on gowns made like sacks, 
closed at their feet. If they received any bruises by falling 
down, they were healed with earth from the grave of the 
uncanonized saint. They usualty, however, showed great 
agility in this respect, and it is scarcely necessary to re- 
mark that the female sex, especially, was distinguished by 
all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable contortions of 
body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible 
rapidity, as is related of the dervishcrs ; others ran their 
heads against walls, or curved their bodies like rope-dancers, 
so that their heels touched their shoulders. Some had a 
board placed across their bodies, upon which a whole row of 
men stood j and, as in this unnatural state of mind a kind 
of pleasure is derived from excruciating pain, some too were 
seen who caused their bosoms to be pinched with tongs, 
while others, with gowns closed at the feet, stood upon their 
heads, and remained in that position longer than would 
have been possible had they been in health."* It is said 
that an advocate — Pinault — who belonged to this sect, 

• Seeker's Epidemics of the .Middle Ages. 



FEAR. 203 

barked like a dog some hours every day, and which barking 
propensity extended among the believers. I believe there 
has existed a sect of religionists called Barkers. Indeed, 
any physical acts may be extended by sympathy, under mor- 
bidly susceptible states of the nervous system. Thus we 
read that a nun in a large convent in France set to mewing 
like a cat ; when, straightway, other nuns began to mew 
also ; and at length all the nuns mewed together for several 
hours at stated times every day, vexing and astonishing the 
whole Christian neighborhood by their daily cat-concert. 
This propensity might have extended itself and become epi- 
demic, and a new sect under the name of Mewers sprung 
up, had not the nuns been apprised that a company of sol- 
diers, provided with rods, had been placed at the entrance of 
the convent, with directions to whip them till they promised 
to mew no more, which ended the farce. 

Another convent-epidemic, described by Cardan, took 
place in G-ermany, in the fifteenth century, surpassing even 
the caterwauling one in France. " A nun in a Grerman nun- 
nery fell to biting all her companions. In the course of a 
short time all the nuns of this convent began biting each 
other. The news of this infatuation among the nuns soon 
spread, and it now passed from convent to convent through- 
out a great part of Germany, principally Saxony and Bra- 
denburg. It afterwards visited the nunneries of Holland, 
and at last the nuns had the biting mania even as far as 
Rome."* 

* Cited in Hecker's Epidemics, by the translator, B. G. Babington, 
M. D„ &c. 



2l)4 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Laycock, in his Essay on Hysteria, has cited from Wes- 
ley's Journal a very curious example of the propagation of 
physical actions through the power of sympathy, or imi- 
tation. 

"Friday, 9th [May, 1740]. I was a little surprised at 
some who were buffeted of Satan in an unusual manner, by 
such a spirit of laughter as they could in no wise resist, 
though it was pain and grief unto them. I could scarcely 
have believed the account they gave me, had I not known 
the same thing ten or eleven years ago. Part of Sunday, 
my brother and I then used to spend in walking in the 
meadows and singing psalms. But one day, just as we were 
beginning to sing, he burst out into loud laughter. I asked 
him if he was distracted, and began to be very angry, and 
presently after to laugh as loud as he. Nor could we pos- 
sibly refrain, though we were ready to tear ourselves to 
pieces, but we were forced to go home without singing ano- 
ther line." 

" Wednesday 21, in the evening, such a spirit of laughter 
was among us, that many were much offended. But the at- 
tention of all was soon fixed on L. S., whom we all knew to 
be no dissembler. Sometimes she laughed till almost stran- 
gled, then broke out into cursing and blaspheming; then 
stamped and struggled with incredible strength, so that four 
or five could scarce hold her. Most of our brothers and 
sisters were now fully convinced that those who were under 
tlii- strange temptation could not help it. Only Elizabeth 
B. and Anne II. were of another mind, being still sure any 
one might help laughing if she would. This they declared 



FEAR. 205 

to many on Thursday, but on Friday, 23d, both of them 
were suddenly seized in the same manner as the rest, and 
laughed whether they would or not, almost without ceasing. 
Thus they continued for two days a spectacle to all, and 
were then, upon prayer made for them, delivered in a mo- 
ment." 

If we recur to the history of the dancing plagues of the 
middle ages, the dance of St. John or St. Vitus, which, fol- 
lowing close upon the ravages of the black death, spread 
"like a demoniacal epidemic over the whole of Germany 
and the neighboring countries to the north-west," and ta- 
rantism which swept equally over Italy, and fancied to arise 
from the bite of the tarantula, a ground spider common in 
Apulia, where the disease first made its appearance, we shall 
find abundant illustration of the wonderful influence of sym- 
pathy in promoting the extension of nervous and imitative 
disorders. 

Epidemic convulsive affections, most often excited by re- 
ligious fanaticism, have prevailed much in Scotland, espe- 
cially in its more northern portions. In the United States 
of America, they have again and again burst forth under the 
influence of a morbid religious enthusiasm, and spread with 
astonishing rapidity through whole communities, and into 
different States. Some of the "Western States, particularly 
in their early settlement, have been most extensively and 
severely affected in this manner. The following account of 
a singular nervous affection which has occasionally appeared 
in certain portions of our western country, called the jerks, 
and which may not be without interest to my readers, is 



206 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

copied from the Ohio Historical Collections into the New- 
York Journal of Medicine, &c, vol. x. p. 372, whence I 
quote it. 

"In 1S03, Austinburg, Morgan and Harpersfield expe- 
rienced a revival of religion, by which about thirty-five from 
those places united with the church at Austinburg. This 
revival was attended with the phenomena of * bodily exercises] 
then common in the West. They have been classified by a 
clerical writer, as, 1st, the falling exercise] 2d, the jerking 
exercise ; 3d, the rolling exercise; 4th, the running exercise ; 
5th, the dancing exercise ; 6th, the barking exercise ; 7th, the 
visions and trances" The account which follows is that of 
the jerking exercise, which, it is thought, sufficiently charac- 
terizes the remainder. 

" It was familiarly called the jerks, and the first recorded 
instance of its occurrence was in East Tennessee, where sev- 
eral hundred of both sexes were seized with this strange and 
involuntary contortion. The subject was instantaneously 
seized with spasms or convulsions in every muscle, nerve, 
and tendon. His head was thrown or jerked from side to 
side with such rapidity that it was impossible to distinguish 
his visage, and the most lively fears were awakened lest he 
should dislocate his neck, or dash out his brains. His body 
partook of the same impulse, and was hurried on by like 
jerks over every obstacle, fallen trunks of trees, or, in eliureh, 
over pews and benches, apparently to the most imminent 
danger of being braised or mangled. It was useless to at- 
tempt to hold or restrain him, and the paroxysm was per- 
mitted gradually to exhaust itself. An additional motive 



FEAR. 207 

for leaving him to himself was the superstitious notion that 
all attempt at restraint was resisting the Spirit of God. 

" The first form in which these spasmodic contortions 
made their appearance, was that of a simple jerking of the 
arms from the elbows downwards. The jerk was very quick 
and sudden, and followed with short intervals. This was 
the simplest and most common form, but the convulsive mo- 
tion was not confined to the arms, it extended in many in- 
stances to other parts of the body. "When the joint of the 
neck was affected, the head was thrown backward and for- 
ward with a celerity frightful to behold, and which was im- 
possible to be imitated by persons who were not under the 
same stimulus. The bosom heaved, the countenance was 
disgustingly distorted, and the spectators were alarmed lest 
the neck should be broken. When the hair was long, it was 
shaken with such quickness, backward and forward, as to 
crack and snap like the lash of a whip. Sometimes the mus- 
cles of the back were affected, and the patient was thrown 
down on the ground, when his contortions for some time re- 
sembled those of a live fish, cast from its native element on 
the land." 

The following description is given by an eye-witness, and 
likewise an apologist, and is probably therefore an accurate 
one. " Nothing in nature could better represent this 
strange and unaccountable operation, than for one to goad 
another, alternately on every side, with a piece of red-hot 
iron. The exercise commonly began in the head, which 
would fly backward and forward, and from side to side, with 
a quick jolt, which the person would naturally labor to sup- 



208 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

press, but in vain ; and the more any one labored to stay 
himself and be sober, the more he staggered and the more 
bis twitches increased. He must necessarily go as he was 
inclined, whether with a violent dash on the ground, and 
bounce from place to place like a football, or hop round with 
head, limbs, or trunk twitching and jolting in every direc- 
tion, as if they must inevitably fly asunder. And how such 
could escape without injury was no small wonder among 
spectators. By this strange operation the human form was 
commonly so transformed and disfigured, as to lose every 
trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would 
be twitched right and left, to a half round, with such velo- 
city, and in the quick progressive jerk, it would seem as if 
the person was transmuted into some other species of crea- 
tures. Head-dresses were of but little account among the 
female jerkers. Even handkerchiefs bound tight round the 
head would be flirted off almost with the first twitch, and 
the hair put in the utmost confusion : this was a very great 
inconvenience, to redress which the generality were shorn, 
though directly contrary to their confession of faith. Such 
as were seized with the jerks, were wrested at once, not only 
from under their own government, but that of every one 
else, so that it was dangerous to attempt confining them or 
touching them in any manner, to whatever danger they were 
exposed ; yet few were hurt, except it were such as rebelled 
against the operation, through wilful and deliberate enmity, 
and refused to comply with the injunctions which it came to 
enforce. 

From the universal testimony of those who have de- 



F E A E . 209 

scribed these spasms, they appear to hare been wholly in- 
voluntary. This remark is applicable also to all the other 
bodily exercises. What demonstrates satisfactorily their 
involuntary nature is, not only that, as above stated, the 
twitches prevail in spite of resistance, and even more for 
attempts to suppress them ; but that wicked men would be 
seized with them while sedulously guarding against an at- 
tack, and cursing every jerk when made. Travellers on 
their journey, and laborers at their daily work, were also 
liable to them." 

Religion, it will be seen from the foregoing observations, 
when fraught with the terrors of a gloomy fanaticism, or 
employed as an agent to stir up a false zeal, and morbid 
emotions in the minds of the weak, ignorant, and suscepti- 
ble, may be productive of the worst evils both to the mental 
and bodily constitution. But it is far otherwise with true 
and rational religion ; a religion grounded on a firm belief 
in a supreme and benevolent Power, who has contrived, 
and who directs all things by the laws of wisdom and good- 
ness, and to whose will we can confidently resign our pre- 
sent and future destiny. Such a religion serves to temper 
the feelings, secure us against an overstrained enthusiasm, 
and morbid nervous excitement ; to render us better and 
happier in life, and to console and sustain us in the hour of 
death. 

Fright, no matter from what source, will be found, on 
recurring to the reports botli of our own and foreign lunatic 
asylums, to hold a prominent place among the causes of 
mental alienation. Mania, or raving madness,- most com- 



210 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

rnonly follows this cause, though in some instances dementia, 
or an incoherence in, or a stagnation, as it were, of all the 
mental powers, has been the mournful and irremediable con- 
sequence. 

The statement is made by an eminent French writer on 
insanity, that many facts have come within his information 
showing that a strong predisposition to madness in the off- 
spring, has arisen from fright experienced by the mother 
during pregnancy ; striking cases of which nature are said 
to have happened during the period of the French revolu- 
tion. That strong impressions acting upon the mind of the 
mother during gestation, and more especially from terror, 
may, in some manner, and under some circumstances, influ- 
ence the physical condition of her offspring, at such time a 
part of herself, and directly dependent upon her vital ac- 
tions for its nutrition and life, will, I think, scarce be dis- 
puted by any one who has cautiously and candidly con- 
sidered the subject. Dr. Andrew Combe, in his treatise on 
the Management of Infancy, has cited from Baron Percy 
the following account of what occurred in this relation after 
the siege of Landau, in 1793. In addition to a violent can- 
nonading, which kept the women for some time in a con- 
tinued state of alarm, the arsenal blew up with a frightful 
explosion, striking almost every one with terror. Out of 
ninety-two children born in that district within a few 
months, sixteen perished at the moment of birth; thirty- 
three lingered for eight or ten months, and then died; 
eight were idiotic, and died before they were five years of 
age ; and two were bom with numerous fractures of the 



FEAR. 211 

bones of the limbs, ascribed to the cannonading and explo- 
sion. That the popular notion that marks upon and de- 
formities of the infant are ascribable to sudden and 
strong emotions in the mother, is unfounded, is the general 
though not unexceptionable belief of modern physiologists. 
That a strong and persisting impression on the mind of the 
mother at a certain period, and under peculiar conditions of 
gestation, may not only be adequate to affect the mental 
constitution, but, occasionally, even to produce marked 
bodily deformity in the offspring, I should be unwilling, in 
opposition to so many recorded and authoritative facts, un- 
reservedly to deny. I will ask the liberty of relating a 
single striking example of an apparent influence of the ima- 
gination of the mother upon her offspring. 

A number of years ago, while on a visit at Washington, 
I was invited by the late Dr. Sewall, Professor in the Medi- 
cal College of that city, to visit a child having a remarkable 
congenital deformity, the probable consequence of the mo- 
ther's imagination. Mrs. , a woman of strong sensi- 
bilities, when three months advanced in pregnancy, experi- 
enced a severe shock to her feelings, from seeing the right 
hand of one of her young children, a daughter, receive an 
injury by being caught in the wheel of a hand-wagon, with 
which she was playing. The hand, slightly lacerated and 
bloody, appeared to the excited fancy of the mother as 
though all the fingers had been torn off, and she, consequently, 
became exceedingly alarmed, and there followed the settled 
impression that her child would be born with a deformed 
hand. This belief she expressed to her physician, Dr. 



212 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Sewall at the time, and repeatedly afterwards, and could 
not be persuaded out of it. At her proper time she was de- 
livered of a boy, and the first question to her accoucheur 
was, " Are the hands perfect?" but, to the astonishment of 
Dr. S., in the place of the right hand, a mere stump, with 
two small knobs of flesh arising from it, was only to be seen. 
I examined this deformity with care, and it appeared as 
though not only the hand, but even the bones of the wrist 
were wanting. The above circumstances were first related 
to me by the woman, and verified by her highly respectable 
attending physician. It was the right hand, let it be re- 
membered, the one corresponding to that injured in the other 
child, which was deficient. The mental impression was here 
early produced, and lasted, with a fixed persuasion that the 
child would be affected with a particular deformity, through 
the whole period of gestation, circumstances shown by the 
cases which have been reported in recent years in different 
medical periodicals, to be favorable to the above-mentioned 
result. I am not prepared to affirm, that the event in the 
case related was any thing more than a mere coincidence, 
and should so set it down, were it not supported by 
numerous other and well-attested instances of a like 
nature. 

Palsies, partial or general, have immediately followed 
the powerful action of fear. The dumbness which has oc- 
casionally Bucceded its operation may doubtless have some- 
times depended on a paralysis in the organs of speech. 
Permanent disease of the heart lias also been known as the 
induced effect of this same passion. 



FEAR. 213 

There are many instances recorded where, through the 
influence of great terror, the hair has become quickly 
changed, in a single night, or even in a few hours, to a gray 
or white — where the head of youth has almost immediately 
become blanched as in old age. Dr. Pettigrew has cited 
the following case, among others equally wonderful, " of a 
noble Spaniard, Don Diego Osorio, who being in love with 
a young lady of the court, had prevailed with her for a pri- 
vate conference, within the gardens of the king ; but by the 
barking of a little dog their privacy was betrayed — the 
young gentleman seized by the king's guard, and im- 
prisoned. It was capital to be found in that place, and 
therefore he was condemned to die. He was so terrified at 
hearing this sentence, that one and the same night saw the 
same person young and old ; being turned gray, as in those 
stricken in years. The jailer, moved at the sight, related 
the accident to King Ferdinand, as a prodigy, who there- 
upon pardoned him, saying, he had been sufficiently pun- 
ished for his fault." M. Rostan, in a French Journal 
of Medicine, relates of a female imprisoned during the 
French revolution, and threatened with execution, that her 
skin, in consequence, underwent a permanent change to the 
hue of the less dark negro. 

Acute fear influences, often very strikingly, the different 
secretions, but perhaps none more remarkably than that of 
the milk. Sometimes it lessens, again, when the fear is sud- 
den and great, it entirely arrests it. Cows, when under the 
influence of this emotion, yield their milk with difficulty; 
and the observation is a familiar one in the country, that 



214 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

some of these animals, and which is doubtless explainable 
on the action of fear, will not "give down" their milk to 
strange milkers. The operation of terror is capable also of 
so vitiating this secretion as to render it not only prejudi- 
cial, but actually poisonous to the child who draws it. Dr. 
Carpenter cites the following instance as one of the most 
remarkable on record, of the effect of strong mental excite- 
ment on the Mammary secretion. " A carpenter fell into a 
quarrel with a soldier billeted in, his house, and was set upon 
by the latter with his drawn sword. The wife of the car- 
penter at first trembled from fear and terror, then suddenly 
threw herself furiously between the two combatants, wrested 
the sword from the soldier's hand, broke it in pieces, and 
threw it away. During the tumult some neighbors came in 
and separated the men. While in this state of strong ex- 
citement, the mother took up her child from the cradle 
where it lay playing, and in the most perfect health, never 
having had a moment's illness ; she gave it the breast, and 
in so doing sealed its fate. In a few minutes the infant left 
off sucking, became restless, panted, and sank dead upon its 
mother's bosom. The physician, who was instantly called in, 
found the child lying in the cradle as if asleep, and with its 
features undisturbed ; but all his resources were fruitless. 
It was irrecoverably gone."* 

Wfl have cases recorded of bloody sweat supervening up- 
on fright. Dr. Millingen, in liirf Curiosities of Medical Ex- 
perience, cites the following case of a widow forty-five years 

* Human Physiology, 



FEAR. 215 

of age, who had lost her only son. " She one day fancied 
that she beheld his apparition, beseeching her to relieve him 
from purgatory by her prayers, and by fasting every Friday. 
The following Friday, in the month of August, a perspira- 
tion tinged with blood broke out. For five successive Fri- 
days the same phenomenon appeared, when a confirmed 
diapedesis (transudation of blood) appeared. The blood es- 
caped from the upper part of the body, the back of the head, 
the temples, the eyes, nose, the breast, and the tips of the 
fingers. The disorder disappeared spontaneously on Friday 
the 8th of March of the following year. This affection was 
evidently occasioned by superstitious fears ; and this appears 
the more probable from the periodicity of the attacks. The 
first invasion of the disease might have been purely acci- 
dental ; but the regularity of its subsequent appearance on 
the stated day of the vision, may be attributed to the influ- 
ence of apprehension. Bartholinus mentions cases of bloody 
sweat taking place during vehement terror and the agonies 
of torture." 

The terrors with which some persons are so often, or al- 
most habitually agitated during their nightly slumbers, can 
hardly be otherwise than detrimental to the health of the 
body. A frightful dream will sometimes impair the appe- 
tite, and leave the individual pale, melancholy, and with his 
nervous system in a state of morbid commotion through the 
whole of the subsequent day. After a night passed amid 
the agony of fancy-framed terrors, it is not to be expected 
that the nerves should suddenly regain their composure, 
that the moral tranquillity should be at once restored. 



216 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The different mental feelings, liberated during sleep 
from the control of the judgment, are in many instances 
highly extravagant, and altogether out of proportion to the 
causes exciting them. Hence, in dreams, our fears are 
often aggravated and distressing, and some persons are in 
the habit of starting suddenly from their repose, in the 
greatest dismay, uttering deep and direful cries, their bodies 
perhaps bathed in sweat, and remaining even for a consider- 
able time after they are fully awake, under the painful im- 
pression of the fancy which affrighted them. Even convul- 
sions and epilepsy have been the unhappy consequence of such 
imaginary terrors. Tissot relates an instance of a robust 
man, who, on dreaming that he was pursued by a bull, awoke 
in a state of great agitation and delirium, and, in not many 
minutes after, fell down in a severe fit of epilepsy. 

In childhood, the impression of dreams being particu- 
larly strong, so that they are sometimes ever afterwards re- 
membered as realities, and fear being then a very active 
principle, more injury is liable to accrue from their imagi- 
nary terrors than at later periods of life. Some children 
are apt to rouse suddenly from their sleep, screaming, cry- 
ing, perhaps springing up on end, or out of bed, in a wild 
delirium of fright, and it may be a good while before their 
fears can be quieted, and their minds composed to rest. 
Those convulsions, too, with which children are occasionally 
seized at night, may not unfre<juently proceed from the 
shim: visionary terrors. 

If the fears of children, from any particular cause, have 



FEAR. 217 

been strongly excited while awake, they will sometimes be 
renewed, even in a more intense degree, perhaps for several 
successive nights, during their slumbers, thus multiplying 
the fearful impressions, and thereby the danger. 



10 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FEAR CONTINUED. IN ITS MORE CHRONIC OPERATION IT BE- 
COMES THE OCCASION OF VARIOUS PREJUDICIAL EFFECTS IN 

THE ANIMAL ECONOMY. SUPERSTITIOUS FEARS IN REGARD 

TO DEATH ARE IN MANY PERSONS A CAUSE OF MUCH SUFFER- 
ING BOTH TO BODY AND MIND. THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS 

EVENT SHOULD BE REGARDED. DANGER OF INDULGING THE 

FANCY OF CHILDREN IN TALES OF SUPERNATURAL TERRORS. 

FORTITUDE OPERATES AS A WHOLESOME STIMULUS BOTH 

TO MIND AND BODY. 

Having learnt how serious are the consequences oftentimes 
arising from acute fear, we rationally infer that even its 
more chronic action may be attended with important injury 
to health. 

A bold, intrepid spirit may justly be ranked among the 
conditions which secure to the constitution its full measure 
of physical power. Few causes will more certainly impair 
the vigor of the nerves, break down the manliness of the 
body, and degrade the energies of the mind, than the habit- 
ual indulgence in imaginary fears. 

The depressing agency of fear is well known to augment 



FEAR. 219 

the susceptibility of the constitution to disease ; and espe- 
cially to the action of contagion, and epidemic influences. 
It was observed by an old and distinguished medical writer 
(Willis), that they who have the greatest fear of small-pox, 
are generally the first to be attacked by it. Hecker, in his 
history of the Black Death, a malignant and wide-spreading 
epidemic of the fourteenth century, says that many fell vic- 
tims to fear, on the first appearance of the distemper. And 
Dr. Caius, in his account of the Sweating Sickness, another 
fatal and extensive epidemic which appeared in England in 
1485, advises, among other means of escaping the disease, 
to set apart all affections, as fretting cares and thoughts, dole- 
ful or sorrowful imaginations, vain fears, foolish loves, gnaw- 
ing hates, and to live quietly, friendly, and merrily one with 
another, to avoid malice and dissension, and every one to 
mind his own business. The cholera is well known during 
its epidemic prevalence to have been often induced in timid 
people through their strong apprehensions of it. 

Tarantism, to which I have before alluded, was doubtless 
often the effect of imaginary fears of having been bitten by 
the tarantula. Thus the bite from any unseen insect would 
not unfrequently bring on all the symptoms of this peculiar 
affection. " The persuasion," says Hecker, " of the inevita- 
ble consequences of being bitten by the tarantula, exercised 
a dominion over men's minds which even the healthiest and 
strongest could not shake off. . . . Wherever we turn, we 
find that this morbid state of mind prevailed, and was so 
supported by the opinions of the age, that it needed only a 
stimulus in the bite of the tarantula, and the supposed cer- 



220 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tainty of its very disastrous consequences, to originate this 
violent nervous disorder." 

Many cases may be found recorded where symptoms of 
hydrophobia have arisen from the mere apprehension of 
having been bitten by a rabid animal. The hypochondriac 
fancies and fears himself the subject of particular diseases, 
and straightway he begins to feel all their symptoms. Some 
medical students, of sensitive and nervous temperaments, 
not only imagine that they have the diseases of which they 
are studying, but will sometimes actually present more or 
less of their symptoms. 

If the sick yield themselves to the impulse of fear, their 
chances of recovery will generally become lessened ; its de- 
pressing influence serving to reduce the reacting or restora- 
tive powers of the vital economy. It has been remarked, 
that the small-pox is particularly apt to prove unfavorable 
in the young and beautiful, who naturally dread a disease 
so fatal to beauty. A strong will may do much for us in 
disease, as well as in health. The timid and dispirited, other 
circumstances being the same, run down the soonest under 
disease. I have seen those who appeared to me to continue 
valetudinarians from mere pusillanimity, from lack of ener- 
gy or moral courage to be well ; a certain force of character 
being a needful stimulus to the physical, as it is to the 
mental actions. 

Undue anxiety, and superstitious apprehensions in re- 
gard to death, which so prey upon the minds of some people, 
may operate to the serious injury of both the physical and 
moral health and tranquillity. It is, as I conceive, the sol- 



FEAR. 221 

emn trappings, ceremonials, and fancied horrors that are so 
generally associated, even in our earliest education, with the 
dissolution of the body, and the gloomy and fearful imagin- 
ings of what is to come after, which cause the feelings to 
revolt from its idea with such dismal forebodings. That we 
have an instinctive dread of pain will scarce be disputed ; 
but whether we have naturally, or independent of educa- 
tion and association, the same feeling in respect to death, 
will, at least, admit of question. Lycurgus, the Spartan 
lawgiver, " to take away all superstition, ordered the dead 
to be buried in the city, and even permitted their monu- 
ments to be erected near the temples ; accustoming the 
youth to such sights from their infancy, that they might 
have no uneasiness from them, nor any horror for death, as if 
people were polluted with the touch of a dead body, or with 
treading upon a grave."* And we read in Herodotus, that 
to keep the mind familiar with the thoughts of death, the 
ancient Egyptians, at their entertainments, had a small 
coffin, containing a perfect representation of a dead body, 
carried round and presented to the different guests in rota- 
tion, the bearer exclaiming — " Cast your eyes on this figure ; 
after death you yourself will resemble it : drink, then, and 
be happy." 

Death being the grand goal of life, and that toward 
which we are all steadily moving, if its image affrights us, it 
must, as it is ever in view, — for struggle as we will we can- 
not shut it out, — be a source of continual and unmitigated 

* Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus. 



222 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

torment ; a bugbear disquieting our whole existence, and 
cutting us off even from the little happiness which life might 
otherwise afford. We should strive then, so far as in us 
lies, to look on death with a composed and philosophical 
spirit, — as one of the great and necessary laws of our vital 
organization, — as the last function, the inevitable consum- 
mation of our present being ; not permitting its gloomy 
shadow to hide the few flowers, and darken the little sun- 
shine of existence. It is well known that the mind may, by 
a proper discipline, be brought to view this final event of 
our nature without the smallest emotion either of terror or 
regret ; and there have been those who, even in the midst 
of a prosperous fortune, have experienced a pleasing satis- 
faction in its contemplation ; have looked forward to it as 
the desirable and peaceful repose to the anxious and weary 
race of life. 

" Sleepe after toile, port after stormie seas, 
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please."* 

It is the part of true philosophy to get from existence 
all we can ; to participate, so far as fortune permits, in 
all its rational and innocent pleasures, — the enjoyments of 
mind, the sweets of virtue. — and yet be willing at any mo- 
ment to part with it. Such was the philosophy of Epicurus, 
and of other of the wisest and best among the ancients, and 
whicli soothed their lives and carried many of them calmly 

* Bpi iy Queen. 



FEAR. 223 

through the most painful deaths. The human mind can 
scarce reach a state of easy quietude until it has learned to 
contemplate the image of death with composure. 

It often happens, paradoxical as it would seem, that 
those whose existence has been the most barren of enjoy- 
ment, who have tasted little beside the bitterness of life, 
are the most anxious to live, the most apprehensive of death. 
Buoyed up by the anticipation of change, by the hope that 
their turn may yet come, and magnifying the value of joys 
they have never tried, they will still cling with an unrelax- 
ing grasp to the very shreds of a tattered existence. Like 
the traveller at his inn, they are unwilling to go to rest till 
they have had their meal. And on the other hand, they 
who have been blest with prosperity, who have feasted boun- 
tifully at life's table, satisfied that they have had their turn, 
satiated with pleasures whose worthlessness they have dis- 
covered, are frequently the most ready to take their de- 
parture. 

It is of the utmost importance, both to the physical and 
moral welfare, that the mind be secured by a proper educa- 
tion against the influence of all supernatural and idle 
sources of terror, — of yawning church-yards, and their pale 
inhabitants, of 

" damned spirits all, 



That in cross-ways and floods have burial." 

The ignorant, and those whose education has been erro- 
neous, and who in early life have been subjected to impro- 



224 'MENTAL HYGIENE. 

per associations, often experience the most aggravated suf- 
ferings from fears of such nature, and even death has at 
times been their consequence. No human courage is proof 
against the terrors of superstition. The hero who braves 
death in the battle-field, may yet tremble at the croaking of 
the raven, or the screech of the night owl. ». 

We can now easily imagine the exceeding hazard of in- 
dulging the fancies of children with idle tales of apparitions, 
haunted houses, witches, &c, which always afford them such 
intense and exciting interest. G-host-stories, above all the 
absurd creations of superstition, would seem to carry most 
terror to the youthful mind. The idea of the reappearance 
of the dead — of the pale, sheeted, stalking ghost of a de- 
parted mortal — is ever associated with the most awful gloom, 
and agitating fear. 

Whether all stories founded on supernatural events 
should be denied to childhood, is a* question I shall not 
here enter upon ; but that all such as serve to engender 
imaginary fears ought to be interdicted, few, it is presumed, 
will feel inclined to dispute. 

All children, but in a more particular manner those of a 
delicate and timid nature, are liable to sustain no little suf- 
fering of body and mind, when their feelings are frequently 
wrought upon by fictitious terrors. As night approaches, 
all their superstitious apprehensions increase, and should 
they chance to be left alone for ever so short a period, their 
situation becomes pitiable in the extreme. And then on 
retiring to rest, appalled by the darkness and silence, and 
dreading lest their eyes should encounter some frightful 



FEAR. 225 

spectre, they bury themselves beneath the bed-clothes, and 
thus lie reeking, perhaps, with sweat, and nearly suffocated 
from the heat and confinement of the air. Nor even here 
do they escape from their fearful imaginings. Uncouth 
phantoms keep rising before their vision, and every little 
noise, though of the most familiar character, as the gnawing 
of a rat, the jarring of a door or window, or even the moan- 
ing of the wind, is magnified or transformed by the dismayed 
fancy into some alarming supernatural sound. On their 
falling asleep these waking fantasies may still be continued 
in the manner of dreams, creating a yet higher degree of 
terror, causing them, often, to start abruptly from their 
slumbers, screaming and wild with affright. In the morn- 
ing, as would be imagined after a night of such painful agi- 
tation, they awake gloomy, languid, and unrefreshed. 

Under the continued disturbance of such shadowy fears, 
the health, certainly if it be not naturally robust, will soon 
begin to decline. The body grows pale, and emaciates, the 
appetite diminishes, the stomach and bowels get disordered, 
and so enfeebled, and so morbidly sensitive may the system 
at length become, that the least noise, if sudden, or the unex- 
pected presence of a person, or any object, will cause violent 
palpitations, difficulty of speaking, nervous tremors and agi- 
tations, and at times even fainting ; and sometimes the ner- 
vous system never entirely recovers from the morbid condi- 
tion into which it has been thus brought. 

So deep seated do these fearful associations, engendered in 
the weakness of childhood, many times become, that darkness 
and stillness will renew them long after the reason is ma- 
10* 



226 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tured, and their absurdity apparent ; and so may they re- 
main a permanent source of injury to the mental tranquilli- 
ty, and by necessary consequence to the physical health. 
The superstitious weakness of Doctor Johnson, — and it may 
be, also, that dread of death which so continually haunted 
him, weighing like a nightmare on his moral energies, and 
imbittering his existence, — were, in all likelihood, the result 
of injudicious associations awakened in the education of his 
early years. We read in Plutarch that the Spartan nurses 
used the children " to any sort of meat, to have no terrors 
in the dark, nor to be afraid of being alone, and to leave all 
ill-humor and unmanly crying."* 

Sporting with the timidity of children, as startling them 
with sudden and uncommon noises or sights, which appears 
to afford so much amusement to some inconsiderate people, 
cannot be too severely censured. And equally censurable 
is the practice of playing upon their natural fears as a mode 
of punishment, or to enforce their obedience, as shutting 
them up in the dark, threatening them with some of the 
many nursery spectres which have been created to help in- 
efficient parents in subduing their misgoverned and there- 
fore refractory offspring. The most melancholy consequences, 
as convulsions, deafness, idiocy, and even death, have some- 
times happened to children from such culpable practices. 
Borne mothers, to still their children to sleep, are in the ha- 
bit of indiscreetly threatening them with llawhcad and 
liloody-Jioncs, or other frightful spectres, thus oftentimes 

* Life of Lycurgus. 



FEAR. 227 

inducing on their tender and naturally timid minds an im- 
pression, deep, lasting, and harmful. If a mother cannot 
quiet her child to rest in a more innocent way than by 
working upon its fears, she had better content herself to 
bear its noise till sleep comes of itself, which it always will 
do in proper time to the young, healthful, and crimeless. 
Objections equally forcible may be urged against terrifying 
and confounding the mind while yet unconfirmed, with the 
awful mysteries and punishments of religion ; subjects 
which always perplex, and often disorder even the ripest 
intellects. 

Why is it, it may be asked, that so large a proportion of 
young children, even at the present period of boasted light 
and philosophy, are afraid to be left a moment by them- 
selves in the dark ; are so loth to go to bed, or about the 
house alone after nightfall, although well assured that there 
are no earthly dangers to hurt them, but that their fancies 
have been unwisely wrought upon through the idle tales of 
superstition ? 

Children, I am convinced, suffer far more from the in- 
fluence under notice than most persons are prone to sus- 
pect ; since asEamed to be thought cowards — and at what 
period of life are we not ? — they will studiously conceal the 
fears which are preying on their health, and crushing all 
their moral energies. Hence, bodily infirmities in them, 
excited and maintained by fear, may often be imputed to a 
physical origin, and they, in consequence, be made the sub- 
jects of medicinal treatment, which weakening yet further 
the powers of the constitution, and thereby adding to the 



228 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

nervous susceptibility, serves but to aggravate the effect of 
the secret cause. 

We can now unerstand how important it is, both as re- 
gards their moral and physical well-being, to keep the young 
as much as possible from the society of ignorant and super- 
stitious domestics, who are always ready to administer to 
their eager cravings for supernatural marvels. Parents, to 
escape the noise and trouble of their children, are too prompt 
to submit them to the care of servants, so that many really 
receive a much larger share of their primary education in 
the kitchen than in the parlor. That such should be the 
case is certainly to be regretted, it belonging to our imita- 
tive nature readily to acquire the habits, manners, and 
modes of thinking and speaking of those with whom we 
habitually associate. And more especially is this true in 
early life, when the mind and body are unfolding them- 
selves, and the brain, soft and delicate, receives with the 
greatest facility every new impression. Boerhaave relates 
that a schoolmaster near Leyden being squint-eyed, it was 
found that the children placed under his care soon exhibited 
a like obliquity of vision. It has been well observed, that 
there is a necessity for us either to imitate others, or to 
hate them. 

Fearlessness and self-reliance, let me add, in conclusion 
of the present chapter, operate at all periods of life as a 
healthful stimulus alike to mind and body ; wherefore such 
feelings ought ever, and in a more particular manner when 
the moral and physical functions are undergoing develop- 
ment, to be assiduously nurtured To such salutary feel- 



FEAR. 229 

ings, moreover, good conduct is always most propitious. 
The opposite being essentially blended with fear and dis- 
trust, must, therefore, however it may serve us in respect to 
mere external goods, be incompatible with the true interests 
both of our mental and bodily constitution. 



CHAPTER XX. 

FEAR CONCLUDED. THAT PECULIAR MODIFICATION OF FEAR 

TERMED HORROR, SUMMARILY EXAMINED. 

That singular mental feeling which we express by the 
word horror, consists in a deep and painful detestation, al- 
most always more or less mingled with fear, of particular 
and, commonly, familiar objects. This, I am aware, is not 
the only sense in which the term is used, but it is the one 
to which I shall especially restrict it in the present chapter ; 
and, taking its original Latin meaning (a shivering or 
quaking, as from fear, or the cold fit of an ague), none cer- 
tainly could better indicate the physical phenomena of this 
afflictive moral feeling. 

The manifestations of horror, as exhibited in the physi- 
cal organization, are mostly the same as those presented in 
simple fear — as sudden paleness, coldness, and contraction 
of the skin, with the consequent elevation of the hairs ; also 
chills and rigors, or general tremors of the body, with pant- 
ing, and oppression of the heart and lungs ; and, when im- 
moderate, it will give rise to the like train of melancholy 



H ORE OR . 231 

phenomena, which have "been already enumerated as the 
characteristics of exceeding terror; such as fainting, con- 
vulsions, epilepsy, palsies, and even instant death. 

Horror is distinguishable from ordinary fear, inas- 
much as it may be excited, and even in an aggravated 
degree, by the presence of objects which neither threaten, 
nor, in fact, cause the slightest apprehension of bodily in- 
jury. A reptile, or insect, for example, known to be entirely 
harmless, may beget such a sense of abhorrence as to bring 
on fainting or convulsions, even in those who would reso- 
lutely encounter the most ferocious animal. The fear, then, 
mingled in the feeling of horror does not necessarily depend 
on any real danger apprehended from its object, but upon 
the suffering which its presence occasions in the nervous 
system. 

Very many people are known to suffer, and oftentimes 
during their whole lives, under a horror, or as it is more 
usually termed, an antipathy, toward particular animals or 
things, and which are often in themselves harmless, and to 
the generality of persons wholly innocuous. Those of a 
nervous or sensitive temperament are more especially apt 
to suffer from antipathies. Indeed there are few of such to 
whom does not belong some object of horror. 

" Some men there are love not a gaping pig ; 
Some, that are mad, if they behold a cat." 

Germanicus could neither endure the sight nor the 
crowing of a cock. " I have seen persons," says Montaigne, 



232 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

" that have run faster from the smell of apples than from 
gun-shot ; others that have been frightened at a mouse ; 
others that have vomited at the sight of cream, and some 
that have done the like at the making of a featherbed."* 
Broussais says he once knew a Prussian officer who could 
see neither an old woman, a cat, nor a thimble, without 
experiencing convulsive agitations ; without jumping and 
screaming, and making unnatural grimaces. Toward honey, 
cheese, musk, strawberries, and other common, and even 
generally agreeable articles, I have known such strong 
antipathies to exist, that the most disagreeable and painful 
effects would be produced by exposure to their slightest 
influence. Dr. Whytt tells us that "several delicate women, 
wl^o could easily bear the stronger smell of tobacco, have 
been thrown into fits by musk, ambergrease, or a pale rose, 
which, to most people, are either grateful, or at least not 
disagreeable." Also that the smell of cheese has in some 
persons almost always caused a bleeding of the nose. That 
tansy, cinnamon, celery, even when brought near certain 
individuals, has caused in them fainting, and general 
uneasiness. And that such was the antipathy to honey 
in a lady mentioned by Mr. Boyle, that a little of it put 
into a poultice, without her knowledge, and applied to a 
slight wound, threw her into great disorder, which lasted 
till the application was removed. f 

Toads, crabs, eels, snakes, and spiders, are very common 
objects of horror. I once knew a strong, healthy man, who 

* Essays, t Observations, &c. 



HORROR. 233 

would turn pale and be thrown into extreme nervous agita- 
tion by the sight of an eel. And I have seen the most 
distressing effect produced upon the nervous system by the 
presence of a spider. " Happening," says Dr. Zimmermann, 
"to be in company with some English gentlemen, all of 
them men of distinction, the conversation fell upon anti- 
pathies. Many of the company denied their reality, and 
considered them as idle stories, but I assured them that 
the^y were truly a disease. Mr. William Matthews, son to 
the governor of Barbadoes, was. of my opinion, because he 
himself had an antipathy to spiders. The rest of the 
company laughed at him. I undertook to prove to them 
that this antipathy was really an impression on his soul 
resulting from the determination of a mechanical effect. 
Lord John Murray undertook to shape some black wax into 
the appearance of a spider, with a view to observe whether 
the antipathy would take place, at the simple figure of the 
insect. He then withdrew for a moment, and came in 
again with the wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. 
Matthews, who in other respects was a very amiable and 
moderate man, immediately conceiving that his friend really 
had a spider in his hand, clapped his hand to his sword 
with extreme fury, and running back towards the partition 
cried out most horribly. All the muscles of his face were 
swelled, his eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his body 
was immovable. We were all exceedingly alarmed, and 
immediately ran to his assistance, took his sword from him, 
and assured him that what he had conceived to be a spider 
was nothing more than a bit of wax. which he might see 
upon the table. 



234 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

" He remained for some time in this spasmodic state, but 
at length he began gradually to recover, and to deplore the 
horrible passion, from which he still suffered. His pulse 
was very strong and quick, and his whole body was covered 
with a cold sweat ; after taking an anodyne draught he re- 
sumed his usual tranquillity."* 

There are individuals who experience an indefinable 
anxiety and distress, sometimes attended with faintness and 
sweating, from the presence, or vicinity of a cat, and even 
when undescried by either of the acknowledged senses. ^Ye 
must here suppose the nervous system, or a portion of it, from 
some unknown modification, to be morbidly sensitive to the 
subtile effluvia arising from the body of the animal. 

Strong antipathies in regard to particular colors are of 
not uncommon occurrence. Dr. Parry tells us that a lady 
whom he knew could not bear to look at any thing of a 
scarlet color ; and that another could endure the sight of 
no light color whatever ; on which account the papers and 
wainscot of her rooms were all tinged with a deep blue or 
green ; and the light was modified by green blinds. " If 
also at any time," says he, " I visited her in white stockings, 
I was always at my entrance presented with a black silk 
apron, with which I was requested to cover these offensive gar- 
ments."! Dr. Elliotson relates of a patient, that being put 
in a room with red curtains, she was in consequence ren- 
dered so thirsty, that she drank seven quarts in one day. 

* On Experience in Physic. 

t Cases of Tetanus, &c, by Dr. Parry, of Bath. 



HORROR. 235 

Certain animals seem to be disturbed, and sometimes even 
rendered furious by red or scarlet ; as bulls, and turkey- 
cocks ; and I have known cows who would always run at a 
female with a red shawl. Horses, too, have, in occasional 
instances, been affected in a like manner by the same color. 

Such antipathies may be innate, that is, dependent upon 
some original and mysterious condition of the animal organ- 
ization, expressed by the term idiosyncracy, or may owe 
their existence to a painful association with the particular 
object of abhorrence which had been awakened in early life. 
In the former case, being connected with those intimate 
laws of our constitution, which are yet, and perhaps will 
ever remain, unveiled to human knowledge ; all attempts to 
trace them to their primary and essential source will neces- 
sarily prove futile. That antipathies, or the peculiar char- 
acter of organism disposing to them, may sometimes be 
inherited, can hardly be questioned. The most singular 
tastes are sometimes inherited, and why may not the same 
be true of distastes or aversions 1 The fondness for ardent 
spirits is doubtless many times derived from parents ; and it 
is recorded in one of the older histories of Scotland, that a 
Scotch girl retained a decided taste for human flesh, for 
the crime of eating which her father and mother had been 
burnt when she was but a year old. I know an individual 
suffering under a deep antipathy to a spider, which anti- 
pathy is traceable to his great-grandfather, on his mother's 
side ; that is, has existed in four successive generations. 

It is a popular notion that antipathies often arise from 
fright or injury experienced by the mother when pregnant, 



236 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

from the particular object of horror. In support of such 
notion, the singular case of James the First, of England, 
has been cited. This monarch, though all his family were 
distinguished for their bravery, was constitutionally timid, 
even to a most ludicrous extent, and could never look upon a 
naked sword without shrinking ; and " turned away his 
head even from that very pacific weapon which he was 
obliged to draw for the purpose of bestowing the accolade 
on a knight dubbed with unbacked rapier, from carpet-con- 
sideration."* Now, it is well known to the readers of his- 
tory, that David Rizzio was stabbed at the feet of Queen 
Mary, two months previous to the birth of James. 

Dr. Copland relates, that a man-servant in his family, 
advanced in life, "had so great an antipathy to the sight of 
a mouse, that he would fly as fast as he was able from the 
place where one was seen, and become quite frantic at the 
sight. He stated that his mother, who likewise had an 
antipathy to mice, had been distressed by one thrown upon 
her when pregnant of him." f Like instances will doubtless 
recur to the minds of many of my readers, for they are of 
familiar occurrence. But even in cases of this description, 
the origin of the antipathy can, for the most part, be ex- 
plained quite as plausibly on the principle of association. 
Thus James, from his earliest childhood, must doubtless 
have often heard the recital of all the frightful circumstances 
connected with Rizzio's cruel death — have observed his 

* History of Scotland, by Sir Walter Scott. 
t Medical Dictionary. Article, Antipathy. 



HOKROE. 237 

mother express horror, as we might presume she would, of 
the instrument of the murder ; and the deep and fearful 
impressions thus made on his tender mind, may have served 
to suppress his natural courage, and have been the occa- 
sion of his remarkable aversion to the sight of a drawn 
sword. 

In the other example quoted, the mother would natu- 
rally be often telling of, and manifesting her repugnance to, 
a mouse, in the presence of her child, and thus necessarily 
create the same dread of it in his infant mind, the impresr 
sion of which would be indelibly preserved. If a mother 
has a detestation of any particular insect, as a spider, for 
example, is it not well known that she will be repeatedly 
expressing it 1 every little while crying out to her child^ 
with a fearful shudder, " Take care of that awful spider?" 
Is it strange, therefore, that the mind of her offspring, thus 
early imbued with, or, as it were, educated to, a horror of 
this insect, should ever afterwards retain it % "A man," 
observes Dr. Zimmermann, "who imbibes any particular 
idea in his early youth, is so strongly affected with it, that 
he never gives it up, even in maturer life, if it has been fre- 
quently repeated. In good truth, why do we see people so 
bigoted to some particular error, who are open to convic- 
tion in every other respect, and yet are blindly bigoted to 
this, but that from their infancy they have heard some ab- 
surd tale a thousand times repeated, and by these means 
the idea has been so firmly imprinted in them, that it would 
be as easy to whiten the Ethiopian as to remove their 
superstition ?" 



238 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Although, then, our antipathies may sometimes be in- 
nate, and may possibly, in certain instances, be referrible to 
the influence of the imagination of the mother strongly ex- 
cited during some period of gestation, nevertheless I con- 
ceive them much oftener to originate in some painful or 
alarming association with the object of aversion, engendered 
in infancy or childhood. 

Mr. Locke, when speaking of antipathies, says, " a great 
part of these which are accounted natural would have been 
known to be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early impres- 
sions or wanton fancies at first, which would have been 
acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily 
observed." # 

It many times happens that the primary and incidental 
source of the antipathy is known and admitted. Thus, 
Peter the Great, when an infant, had a fall into the water 
on riding over a bridge ; in consequence of which, even in 
mature life, he could neither bear the sight of water, nor 
the rattling of a carriage upon a bridge. 

We can now see how essential it is in the education of 
children, to avoid, as far as may be, all occasions of erro- 
neous association, or false prejudices, — exciting or cherish- 
ing imaginary terrors in relation to any particular object ; 
as from such sources will often grow up aversions causing 
no little Buffering both to body and mind during the whole 
future existence. 

When antipathies already exist, and more especially if 

* On the Human Understanding, 



HORROR. 239 

toward common objects, or such as we are every day liable 
to encounter, both health and happiness demand that the 
most persevering efforts be made to subdue them. They 
may generally be surmounted, either entirely or to a very 
considerable extent, by gradually inuring the mind to the 
presence or influence of the object of horror, the well-known 
effect of habit being to obtund the feelings. If, however, 
the repugnance be very strong, a greater share of moral 
energy than most persons possess will be required to van- 
quish it. James being naturally timid, and weak in his re- 
solutions, never, that we learn, overcame his aversion to the 
naked sword. Whereas Peter, of a more bold and deter- 
mined character, in the end completely conquered his pain- 
ful dislike to the rattling of a carriage over a bridge, and 
his dread of the water, by resolutely exposing himself to 
the former, and repeatedly plunging into the latter. 

It is an unaccountable fact in our constitution, that habit 
will in some cases not merely overcome an antipathy, but 
will actually beget a fondness for the object of former aver- 
sion. Thus does it happen that those who at first experi- 
ence the greatest horror at the sight of blood, so that they 
can scarce look upon it without fainting, will, under the 
influence of custom, not unfrequently become the most bold 
and devoted surgeons. Nurses, and those females whose 
business it is to dress and prepare the dead for their last 
narrow receptacle, although at first perhaps sensitive, deli- 
cate, and moved with horror at the mere sight of a dead 
body, come at length to experience a pleasurable excite- 
ment, even a morbid delight among the gloomy scenes and 



240 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

circumstances of their unnatural occupation. Sir Walter 
Scott, in the following dialogue, has well depicted, and 
scarcely caricatured the feelings of these crones of the 
death-chamber. 

" 'Ay ! and that's e'en true, cummer,' said the lame hag, 
propping herself with a crutch, which supported the short- 
ness of her left leg, ' for I mind when the father of this 
Master of Ravenswood that is now standing before us, 
sticked young Blackhall with his whinger, for a wrang word 
said ower their wine, or brandy, or what not — he gaed in as 
light as a lark, and he came out wi' his feet foremost. I 
was at the winding of the corpse ; and when the bluid was 
washed off, he was a bonny bouk of a man's body.' 

" ' He's a frank man and a free-handed man, the master,' 
said Annie Winnie, ' and a comely personage, broad in the 
shouthers, and narrow around the lungies — he wad mak a 
bonny corpse — I wad like to hae the streaking and winding 
o' him.' 

" ' It is written on his brow, Annie Winnie,' returned the 
octogenarian, her companion. ' that hand of woman, or of 
man either, will never straught him — dead — deal will never 
be laid on his back — make you your market of that, for I 
hae it from a sure hand.' "* 

In many other points in our moral nature, it is truly 
surprising how extremes may be changed, and not unfre- 
quently in a brief space of time, to those of a directly oppo- 
site character. Hence the common saying, that fallen an- 

* Bride of Lanimermoor. 



HORROR. 24 1 

gels make the worst devils ; and Old Apollyon himself, as 
we read, was once an angel of light. The formal and sanc- 
timonious puritan, if he departs from goodness, will often 
pass to the most hopeless extreme of vice. The coy, prud- 
ish, blushing female, may become the most shameless and 
abandoned courtesan. The homespun clown, going to the 
metropolis, and casting aside his rustic garb, will not rarely 
become transfigured into the most laughable caricature of a 
city fopling. And the needy and low-bred wretch, and the 
ranting political leveller, on attaining to wealth and power, 
are apt to become the most arrogant, overbearing, and offen- 
sive aristocrats. 

In some of our senses, but particularly in the sense of 
taste, this same principle holds in a very striking manner. 
Hence many articles which are in the beginning most offen- 
sive and sickening to the palate, will, under the power of 
habit, not only get to be agreeable, but absolutely necessary 
to our comfort. In tobacco we have a strong and familiar 
illustration of this remark. It is well known, too, how at- 
tached some people become to garlic, though at first so acrid 
and unpleasant. And even asafoetida, naturally so odious 
both to taste and smell, was held in such esteem by some of 
the ancients that they termed it " the meat of the gods." 
Oftentimes, therefore, while we become cloyed and wearied 
with, and get even to loathe the objects which were at first 
most pleasant to us, by a strange perversion of taste do we 
derive a permanent delight from those which were originally 
disgusting. 

The development of antipathies is ever to be carefully 
11 



242 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

watched, and the mind gradually and cautiously habituated 
to the impression which awakens them. It is to be regret- 
ted, however, that a contrary practice more often prevails ; 
the child either being scrupulously preserved from the ob- 
ject of his repugnance, or what is infinitely worse, his ter- 
rors of it are purposely excited, or aggravated, for the idle 
amusement of those who have not sense enough to compre- 
hend the danger of such sport. The most disastrous conse- 
quences have sometimes resulted to children, as well as 
grown persons, by suddenly subjecting them to the influence 
of an object of their peculiar horror. 



CHAPTER XXL 

GRIEF. GENERAL REMARKS UPON THIS PASSION. THE ACUTE 

STAGE, OE, A PAROXYSM OF GRIEF DESCRIBED, WITH THE 
MORBID, AND EVEN FATAL EFFECTS OF WHICH IT MAY BE 
PRODUCTIVE. 

Gtrief, consisting essentially in moral pain, must therefore 
enter to a greater or less extent, into all the passions of the 
class we are now considering. It bears, then, to the painful 
and depressing, a relation analogous to that of joy to the 
pleasurable and exciting passions. 

Grief, presenting itself in diverse degrees and modifica- 
tions, is consequently known under a variety of names, as 
sorrow, sadness, melancholy, dejection, &c, all of which in- 
duce similar phenomena in the bodily functions. The term 
is generally defined to mean the mental suffering arising 
from the privation of some good in possession, or the disap- 
pointment of some pleasing anticipation. I shall allow it, 
however, as will be seen in the sequel, a signification still 
broader than this definition implies. 

The passion in question may be simple, as is most com- 



244 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

mon under the loss of kindred and friends ; or it may be 
united with chagrin, or impatient and angry repinings. 
And again, it may grow out of, and hence be blended with 
the various malignant feelings of the heart, as envy, jealousy, 
hatred, revenge, all of which are more or less fraught with 
moral pain. As it is a law of our constitution that every 
good and benevolent affection should bring with it its own 
recompense, so likewise is it that every evil one should be- 
come the author of its own punishment. " To love is to en- 
joy, to hate is to suffer." In hating we punish ourselves,* 
not the object of our hate. Self-interest, therefore, if we are 
actuated by no better, should be a sufficient motive for us 
to cultivate the amiable, and to suppress the vicious feelings 
of our nature. 

Grief may be acute and transient, or it may assume a 
more chronic or lasting character ; in which latter case it is 
generally designated by the term sorrow, or sadness. Other 
things being equal, its violence will be proportioned to the 
suddenness and unexpectedness of the cause producing it. 

I will now go on to describe the effects induced upon 
the bodily functions by the acute stage, or what is commonly 
denominated a paroxysm of grief; and most of these — for 
there is a close relationship among all the passions founded 
on pain — will be recognized as nearly resembling those 
which have already been depicted under the heads of anger 
and fear. 

On the first strong impulse of mental affliction, an ago- 
nizing sense of oppression and stricture is experienced at 
the heart and lungs, accompanied with a distressing feeling 



GRIEF. 245 

of impendent suffocation ; it oftentimes seeming as though 
the whole chest were contracted, or bound with cords. The 
want of fresh air becomes at the same time exceedingly ur- 
gent, giving occasion to the deep and frequent sighing so 
commonly observed in those stricken with calamity. Sigh- 
ing consists in a long drawn, or protracted inspiration, suc- 
ceeded by a corresponding expiration, which, beside furnish- 
ing an increased supply of air, may, by distending the lungs, 
facilitate the passage of blood through them, and thus serve 
in a measure to alleviate the painful oppression felt in these 
organs and at the heart. 

So distinct and remarkable is the suffering at the heart 
in deep grief, that it is frequently expressed by the term 
heart-ache, and its victims are said to die broken-hearted. 
Under its aggravated influence sharp pains even are felt in 
the heart, sometimes shooting up to the shoulder, and every 
pulsation of this organ is attended with a severe and thrill- 
ing distress. 

It not rarely happens, particularly in nervous females, 
that a sort of spasm affects the throat, causing a sensation as 
if a ball was rising in it, and choking the passage of the air. 
Hence the familiar expression " to choke with sorrow." 
The dryness, likewise, in the mouth and throat, from the 
diminution in their natural secretions, adds to, and may 
even of itself occasion this choking sensation ; and is more- 
over the cause, or at least in part, of the frequent and diffi- 
cult swallowing so often noticed in acute grief. 

Speaking, owing to this defect of moisture in the mouth 
and throat, as well as to the embarrassment at the heart and 



246 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

lungs, is attended with a marked effort, and the voice is 
thick, husky, broken, tremulous, and weak. 

The circulation, as would be supposed, feels the influ- 
ence, in a greater or less degree, of this passion. Thus the 
pulse is generally weakened, oftentimes accelerated, occa- 
sionally becomes intermittent, or otherwise irregular ; and 
the extreme vessels of the surface contracting unnaturally, 
and unsupplied with their wonted quantity of blood from 
the heart, the skin loses its customary warmth, and its rud- 
dy tint of health. The energies of the nerves, too, becom- 
ing depressed and deranged under the morbid agency of 
this painful emotion, tremors, with various other of those 
disturbances which we term nervous, are likely to supervene. 

The organs of the abdomen are also implicated in the 
general suffering. An uneasiness, in many cases quite se- 
vere, is referred to the region, or what we term the pit of 
the stomach. The appetite fails, and the powers of digestion 
become obviously impaired, and sometimes altogether sus- 
pended. Imagine one, while in the midst of the enjoyment 
of his dinner, to be unexpectedly apprised of some afflictive 
calamity, and the result scarce need be told. On the in- 
stant, as though touched by the wand of a magician, will 
the dishes before him, even the most savory, cease to de- 
light his palate, and he turns, perhaps, with a painful sense 
of loathing from the very food which but a moment before 
he contemplated with the most eager desire. Or should he 
persist in his meal, every mouthful he tries to swallow 
seems to stick in bis throat, and he is forced soon to aban- 
don what has now become to him so disagreeable a task. 



GRIEF. 247 

Again, suppose the meal to have been just finished on the 
abrupt excitement of this painful emotion, then there might 
ensue the various phenomena of indigestion, and even vom- 
iting, were the mental shock extreme. Shakspeare had in 
view the particular effect of grief under notice, where he 
makes King Henry say to Cardinal Wolsey,-- 



" Read o'er th 



is, 



And after, this, and then to breakfast with 
What appetite you have." 

Grief often lessens the secretion of bile, or, by exciting a 
spasmodic contraction of its ducts, impedes its passage ; 
whence the jaundiced hue of the skin which has been known 
to follow it. Sometimes it increases the amount, and viti- 
ates the quality of this secretion, and even bilious vomitings 
have been produced by sharp affliction. Other secretions 
are in like manner affected by this emotion, being increased, 
lessened, and vitiated. Misfortune will often greatly dimin- 
ish, or almost suppress the secretion of milk ; or so vitiate 
its qualities as to render it highly noxious to the infant. 
Children have been attacked with convulsions, and palsy, on 
sucking immediately after the mother had experienced some 
painful calamity. Dr. Carpenter states that " the halitus 
from the lungs is sometimes almost instantaneously affected 
by bad news, so as to produce foetid breath. " # 

In the young, generally, and in most females, at what- 
ever age, on the first impression of ordinary grief, the visage 

* Human Physiology. 



248 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

suddenly becomes distorted, or drawn into a distressed and 
dismal expression, as under bodily suffering, and which is 
strikingly significant of the painful internal condition. 
With this disfiguration of the countenance, the respiration 
assumes a new or modified action. There takes place a 
deep, and often sonorous and tremulous inspiration, followed 
by an interrupted, or broken and imperfect expiration, con- 
joined with the familiar sounds so peculiarly expressive of 
both mental and bodily anguish, called sobbing or crying. 
The lachrymal secretion being at the same time much in- 
creased, the tears overflow the eyes, and roll down the 
cheeks. This act of weeping, especially when the tears run 
copiously, evinces a moderate or moderated sorrow, and is 
associated with a mitigation of the inward distress and op- 
pression, as of the heart and lungs, and thus forms a sort of 
natural crisis to a paroxysm of grief, just as sweating does 
to a paroxysm of fever. Some persons can never weep, 
under afflictions of any character, and such generally ex- 
perience much keener sufferings than those whose sorrows 
find a more ready outlet at their eyes. It is seldom that 
an individual dies in a fit of grief when weeping takes place 
freely. 

Crying, though more particularly significant of grief, yet 
is by no means confined to it, but happens in various other 
emotions, as of tenderness, joy, anger, fear, &o., and may 
serve to lessen the danger of all violent passions. 

It has been affirmed by some writers, that man is the 
only animal that signifies sorrow by weeping; but the truth 
of sueh assertion is not yet ineoutestably settled. That 



GRIEF. 249 

the eyes of the inferior animals do oftentimes overflow with 
tears, is not to be disputed ; but does this happen as a con- 
sequence of moral emotions? It is said of the orang- 
outang, that he has been observed to cry, much after the 
manner of our own species. The keeper of one which was 
exhibited a number of years ago in this country told me, that 
when grieved or angry she would cry " just like a child." 
Some other species of the monkey tribe, and even other ani- 
mals, as the seal and camel, for example, have been asserted 
to shed tears under the influence of mental feelings. Extrava- 
gant grief is sometimes indicated by loud convulsive laugh- 
ter. The readers of history will probably call to mind the 
story of G-elimer, king of the Yandals, told by Mr. Gibbon. 
The first public interview after he had been forced to sur- 
render himself to Belisarius, " was in one of the suburbs of 
Carthage; and when the royal captive accosted his con- 
queror, he burst into a fit of laughter." 

Violent outward expressions, or crying and noisy vocifera- 
tions, by no means mark the deepest inward sufferings. 

" Curse leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent." 

The following citation from Herodotus will form an apt il- 
lustration of the above remark. 

" On the tenth day after the surrender of the citadel of 
Memphis, Psammenitus, the Egyptian king, who had reigned 
no more than six months, was, by order of Cambyses, igno- 
miniously conducted, with other Egyptians, to the outside 
of the walls, and, by way of trial of his disposition, thus 
treated : His daughter, in the habit of a slave, was sent 
11* 



250 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

with a pitcher to draw water ; she was accompanied by a 
number of young women clothed in the same garb, and 
selected from families of the first distinction. They passed 
with much and loud lamentation before their parents, from 
whom their treatment excited a correspondent violence of 
grief. But when Psammenitus beheld the spectacle, he 
merely declined his eyes on the ground : when this train 
was gone by, the son of Psammenitus, with two thousand 
Egyptians of the same age, were made to walk in procession 
with ropes round their necks, and bridles in their mouths. 
These were intended to avenge the death of those Mityle- 
nians who, with their vessel, had been torn to pieces at 
Memphis. The king's counsellors had determined that for 
every one put to death on that occasion, ten of the first 
rank of the Egyptians should be sacrificed. Psammenitus 
observed these as they passed ; but although he perceived 
that his son was going to be executed, and while all the Egyp- 
tians around him wept and lamented aloud, he continued 
unmoved as before. When this scene also disappeared, he 
beheld a venerable personage, who had formerly partaken 
of the royal table, deprived of all he had possessed, and in 
the dress of a mendicant asking charity through the differ- 
ent ranks of the army. This man stopped to beg alms of 
Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, and the other noble Egyp- 
tians who were sitting with him ; which, when Psammenitus 
beheld, he could no longer suppress his emotions, but call- 
ing on his friend by name, wept aloud and beat his head. 
This the spies, who were placed near him to observe his 
conduct on each incident, reported to Cambyscs ; who, in 



GRIEF. 251 

astonishment at such behavior, sent a messenger, who was 
thus directed to address him : ' Your lord and master, Cam- 
byses, is desirous to know why, after beholding with so 
much indifference your daughter treated as a slave, and 
your son conducted to death, you expressed so lively a con- 
cern for that mendicant, who, as he has been informed, is 
not at all related to you.' Psammenitus made this reply : 
1 Son of Cyrus, my domestic misfortunes were too great to 
suffer me to shed tears : but it was consistent that I should 
weep for my friend, who, from a station of honor and of 
wealth, is in the last stage of life reduced to penury.' "* 

The keenest sorrow would appear to concentrate, and, as 
it were, benumb all the actions of life, and its unfortunate 
subject — his nervous energies completely overpowered — 
remains silent, motionless, stupefied ; sometimes, as in a 
state of ecstasy, rigid and stiffened like a statue ; whence 
Niobe, overwhelmed with the suddenness and greatness of 
her misfortunes, is fabled to have been changed into stone. 
Dr. Zimmermannhas cited from Tulpius the case of a young 
Englishman, " who having met with a refusal from a lady, 
became perfectly rigid and motionless, sitting in the same 
attitude with his eyes open, and appearing rather like a 
statue than a human being ; he continued in this posture 
till night, and then, on being told that his mistress yielded 
to his passion, he rose instantly as if from a profound sleep, 
became more cheerful, and soon recovered." 

When grief breaks forth into tears and lamentations, and 

* Book iii. 14. 



252 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

violent muscular actions, as beating the breast, wringing the 
hands, tearing the hair, it shows an energy of resistance in 
the system, with a more general diffusion of the influence of 
the passion, and that we have less, therefore, to dread from 
its consequences. " The soul," as it has been said, " by giv- 
ing vent to sighs and tears, seems to disentangle itself, and 
obtain more room and freedom." Anger, too, is here often- 
times awakened, and mingling with the original emotion, 
assists in promoting its reaction. 

We can now see that it is not those who make the great- 
est ado about their troubles — who are ever, in season and 
out of season, forcing them upon the notice of others, that 
are likely to feel them the deepest. Slight grief is apt to 
prattle and complain, whereas the most profound is speech- 
less, avoids every allusion to its source, shuns all society, 
even the intercourse and consolations of friendship, and tears 
and sighs are denied to it, or come but seldom to its relief. 

We may furthermore learn that those persons who arc 
anxious to hide their grief, who struggle to confine it within 
their own bosoms, must undergo far weightier sufferings 
than such as yield themselves freely to its impulses. Hence 
those sorrows which are of a more delicate or secret nature, 
and under which one is often obliged even to feign a con- 
trary sentiment, produce the sharpest inward torture, and 
arc the most speedily destructive to health and life. 

" What equall torment to the pjriefe of mind, 
And pyning anguish hid in gentle hart, 
That inly feeds itselfe with thoughts unkind, 



GRIEF. 253 

And nourisheth her own consuming smart? 
What medicine can any leaches art 
Yeeld such a sore that doth her grievance hide, 
And will to none her maladie impart?"* 

Sometimes under the sudden stroke of aggravated grief, 
the powers of life are so completely overwhelmed that they 
cannot react, and instant or speedy death is the consequence. 

" In the war which King Ferdinand made upon the 
dowager of King John of Hungary, a man in armor was par- 
ticularly taken notice of by every one for his extraordinary 
gallantry in a certain encounter near Buda, and being un- 
known, was highly commended, and as much lamented when 
left dead upon the spot, but by none so much as by Raisciac, 
a German nobleman, who was charmed with such unparal- 
leled valor. The body being brought off the field of battle, 
and the count, with the common curiosity, going to view it, 
the armor of the deceased was no sooner taken off, but he 
knew him to be his own son. This increased the compas- 
sion of all the spectators ; only the count, without uttering 
one word, or changing his countenance, stood like a stock, 
with his eyes fixed on the corpse, till, the vehemency of sor- 
row having overwhelmed his vital spirits, he sunk stone dead 
to the ground."! " Almost in the very moment that I am 
writing," says Dr. Zimmermann, " Prince Greorge Louis of 
Holstein, having lost his wife, directed her corpse to be re- 
moved from the coflin in which it was placed, into another 

* Spenser's Faery Queene. 
t Montaigne's Essays. 



254 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

of more costly materials ; and when this was done, the 
prince kneeling down at the side of the coffin, desired his 
valet de chambre to read to him some pages of a pious 
book, melted into tears, and soon afterwards died."* 

Under the sudden shock of grief, the heart and nervous 
system may become so greatly agitated and disturbed, as to 
place the life of the individual in much peril. Here a gen- 
eral throbbing is felt throughout the body, and a distinct 
thrill may be perceived in all the arteries whose pulsations 
are sensible, and the anxiety and distress are extreme. Dr. 
Hope records the case of a healthy plethoric young female, 
who, on receiving the intelligence that her husband had de- 
serted her, fell into a state of almost complete insensibility, 
"and the vioVntly bounding, jerking, and thrilling arterial 
throb, together with universal flushing, heat, and perspiration 
of the surface, resisted every remedy, and only subsided 
with the wane of life."f 

Dr. William Stroud, in a volume of four hundred and 
ninety-six pages, published in London in 1847, on the Phy- 
sical Cause of the Death of Christ, and its Relation to the 
Principles and Practice of Christianity, has, by a long series 
of facts and arguments, endeavored to show that the speedy 
death of Christ on the cross was owing to a rupture of the 
heart, produced by his mental agony and fear in the Garden, 
and upon the cross; and that this mode of death goes to 
fulfil several prophecies in the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

* Experience in Physic. 

t On Diseases of tlie Heart, (fee. 



GRIEF. 255 

Apoplexy, or some other equally fatal malady, is occa- 
sionally induced by sudden and poignant affliction, speedily 
terminating existence. Pope Innocent TV. died from the 
morbid effects of grief upon his system soon after the dis- 
astrous overthrow of his army by Manfred. 

Severe grief may likewise call into action various ner- 
vous diseases of a more or less grave and lasting character ; 
as palsy, epilepsy, catalepsy, ecstasy, St. Vitus's dance, and 
hysterics accompanied sometimes with convulsive laughter. 
And settled insanity in some of its forms, even dementia, 
has been known to follow upon sudden and great mis- 
fortune. 

Dr. Whytt informs us that he had a patient who, upon 
the unexpected death of her husband, was seized with fre- 
quent fainting fits, generally holding her from five to fifteen 
minutes. " In these faintings she lay like a dead person, 
without any apparent breathing, or motion of the breast ; 
only when a candle was held near her mouth, the flame was 
observed to move a little." In this way she continued for 
two days, coming out of the fits with sighings and crying, 
and falling into them again in little more than a quarter of 
an hour.* " It happened not long ago at London, that an 
Englishman who attended the funeral of his wife, lost the 
use of all his limbs, and continued speechless for some time 
afterwards."! 

" Two young conscripts, who had recently joined the 

* Observations on Nervous Diseases, &c. 
f Zimmermann on Experience in Physic. 



256 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

army, were called into action. In the heat of the engage- 
ment one of them was killed by a musket ball, at the side 
of his brother. The survivor, petrified with horror, was 
struck motionless at the sight. Some days afterwards he 
was sent in a state of complete idiotism to his father's 
house. His arrival produced a similar impression upon a 
third son of the same family. The news of the death of 
one of the brothers, and the derangement of the other, 
threw this third victim into a state of such consternation 
and stupor, as might have defied the powers of ancient or 
modern poetry to give an adequate representation of it."* 

* Treatise on Insanity. By Ph. Pinel, Prof, of the School of Medi- 
cine at Paris, &c. 



CHAPTEB XXII 

GRIEF CONTINUED. EFFECTS ON THE ECONOMY FROM ITS MORE 

SLOW OR CHRONIC ACTION. 

Although, as shown in the preceding chapter, an acute 
paroxysm of grief may be fraught with extreme hazard to 
health, and even life, yet it is the rooted and stubborn sor- 
row, from whose burden the heart finds no rest, to which 
disease and untimely death are the more frequently to be 
ascribed. No constitution is proof against the corroding 
influence of seated sorrow. 

The deep and settled despondency consequent on a 
separation from the happy scenes and associations of one's 
native home, termed home-sickness ; or the moral suffering 
proceeding from defeated ambition, reverses of fortune, the 
bereavement of near and dear relatives, or disappointment 
in the more tender affections of the heart, will not rarely 
engender or excite some serious malady, under whose influ- 
ence life must speedily yield. And to those of a frail and 
delicate constitution, the danger from such unfortunate 
sources will be immeasurably enhanced. 



258 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Morton entitles one of his species of consumption, a me- 
lancholia; and Laennec, eminently distinguished for his 
writings and practical observations on diseases of the chest, 
is disposed to ascribe the greater prevalence of consump- 
tion in large cities, to the numerous and close relations 
among men, affording more frequent occasions for the deve- 
lopment of the gloomy and bad passions of the heart. This 
latter author records the following remarkable example, 
which was ten years under his observation, of what he be- 
lieved to be the effect of the melancholy and depressing 
passions in the production of consumption. " There ex- 
isted, during the time mentioned, at Paris, a recent reli- 
gious community of women, who, on account of the extreme 
severity of their regulations, had obtained only a condi- 
tional toleration from the ecclesiastical authority. Their 
diet, though austere, did not exceed what the powers of na- 
ture could endure ; but the rigor of their religious rules 
was productive of effects both melancholy and surprising. 
Their attention was not only habitually fixed on the most 
terrible truths of religion, but they were tried by all kinds 
of opposition to induce them, as soon as possible, to re- 
nounce entirely their own proper will. The effects of this 
course were alike in all. At the end of one or two months 
an important function of their constitution became suppress- 
ed, and in one or two months more, consumption was evident. 
They not being bound by vows, I urged tliein, on the first 
manifestation of the Bymptoms of the malady, to quit the 
establishment ; and almost all who followed the advice 
were cured, though many of them had already exhibited 



GRIEF. 259 

evident signs of consumption. During the ten years that I 
was physician to this household, I saw it renewed two or 
three times by the successive loss of all its members, with 
the exception of a very small number, composed principally 
of the superior, the grate keeper, and the sisters who had 
the care of the garden, the kitchen, and the infirmary ; and 
it is worthy of remark, that those persons were the ones 
who had the most frequent distractions from their religious 
austerities, and that they frequently went out into the city 
on duties connected with the establishment." The same 
author likwise tells us, that almost all the individuals whom 
he has seen become phthisical without the signs of the consti- 
tutional predisposition, appeared to owe the origin of their 
malady to deep or long continued sorrow.* I have seen it 
also remarked by another French writer, that phthisis, in 
those convents particularly where the discipline is severe, 
carries off a great number of the nuns. The gloomy state of 
mind induced by such austerity may, to say the least, oper- 
ate in aid of other causes in generating or exciting this fatal 
malady. 

Nostalgia, or home-sickness, (maladie du pays, of the 
French,) through the deep moral suffering attending it, has 
not unfrequently called forth diseases of the chest, and par- 
ticularly consumption. The Swiss, when removed from 
their own native mountains, are particularly liable to be- 
come affected with this malady, and sometimes fall victims 

* Traite de 1' Auscultation mediate et des Maladies des Poumons et 
du Cceur. 



260 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

to it, when the lungs will often be found in a state of dis- 
ease. But the natives of all countries, removed from the 
scenes, companions, and domestic associations of their native 
home, may become its subjects. Soldiers forced into the 
service often experience it in an aggravated degree, and it 
not seldom proves fatal to them. The natives of mountain- 
ous regions appear to be much more subject to home-sick- 
ness than the inhabitants of the plains. Esquirol observes 
that the mountaineer cannot bear a long absence from the 
home of his nativity, but continues to mourn, and at last 
pines away and dies if he cannot return to it. He accounts 
for this on the assumption that the inhabitants of moun- 
tainous districts are less civilized than those who dwell on 
the plains. But do not the more striking objects belonging 
to mountain scenery, its wild and varying beauties, its im- 
pressive boldness and grandeur, stamp themselves more 
deeply and indelibly upon the feelings, and so beget 
stronger and more lasting associations, than the tame, uni- 
form, and artificial scenery of the cultivated plain? 

The sorrow attendant on disappointed love, in those of 
frail and delicate constitutions, romantic and sensitive feel- 
ings, and secluded habits, is a not uncommon exciting cause 
of consumption. 

Insanity, certainly where any predisposition exists to it 
in the system, is very liable to be developed by all such 
causes as depress and afflict the mind. In turning over the 
reports of different Lunatic asylums, we shall learn that a 

large proportion of their eases are aseribed to moral afflic- 
tions; as unrequited love, great reverses of fortune and pe- 



GRIEF. 261 

cuniary embarrassments, disappointed ambition, religious 
despondency, remorse, unhappy marriage and domestic trou- 
ble, loss of relatives, home-sickness, &c. We are told that 
the first question which M. Pinel was in the habit of putting 
to a new patient, who still retained some remains of intelli- 
gence, was, "have you undergone any vexation or disap- 
pointment ?" and that the reply was seldom in the negative. 
The causes alluded to being always most influential in civil- 
ized life, is regarded as one principal reason why insanity 
prevails in proportion to the cultivation of society. Domes- 
tic trials rank among the most frequent moral sources of in- 
sanity, and especially among women. Disappointed affection 
is also a common cause of this malady, but it excites it much 
oftener, according to M. Esquirol, in females than in males. 
Women, he tells us, with whom love is the great business of 
life, bear with much more difficulty than men, the effects of 
its disappointment. His tables also show that they more 
often become insane from jealousy. " I have had occasion," 
says Dr. Zimmermann, " to see all the great hospitals in Pa- 
ris, and have distinguished in them three kinds of mad peo- 
ple. The men, who were become so through pride; the 
girls, through love ; and the women, through jealousy. All 
these people had the appearance of so many furies. 

"Among the lunatics confined at Bicetre, during the 
year 3 of the republic, whose cases I particularly examined, 
I observed that the exciting causes of their maladies, in a 
great majority of instances, had been very vivid affections of 
the mind, such as ungovernable or disappointed ambition, 
religious fanaticism, profound chagrin, and unfortunate love. 



262 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Out of one hundred and thirteen madmen, with whose his- 
tories I took pains to inform myself, thirty-four were re- 
duced into this state by domestic misfortunes ; twenty-four 
by obstacles to matrimonial connections which they had ar- 
dently desired to form ; thirty by events connected with the 
revolution, and twenty-five by religious fanaticism."* 

In those disastrous periods when poverty and reverses 
of fortune are most common, mental derangement has been 
observed to become more frequent. 

"Anxiety and agitation of mind caused by political 
events, have occasionally produced a very decided effect on 
the numbers of persons becoming deranged. M. Esquirol 
declares that the law of conscription increased the number 
of lunatics in France, and that at every period of this levy, 
many individuals were received into the hospitals, who had 
become insane through the excitement and anxiety occa- 
sioned by it ; they were partly from the number of those on 
whom the lot fell, and partly from their friends and rela- 
tives. ' The influence of our political misfortunes has been 
so great,' says the same writer, ' that I could illustrate the 
history of our revolution, from the taking of the Bastile to 
the last appearance of Bonaparte, by describing in a scries 
the cases of lunatics, whose mental derangement was in con- 
nection witli the succession of events.'"! 

Monomania is a form of insanity not uncommonly follow - 
ing the chronic action of grief. If an individual of the mcl- 

* Pinel on Insanity. 
i Priehard on Insanity. 



GRIEF. 263 

ancholic temperament sustains some grave misfortune, he is 
apt to brood over it in painful despondency. His general 
health, therefore, soon becomes impaired, his moral energy 
languishes, and no motive can arouse him to wholesome ex- 
ertion. In time his melancholy gets more deep and settled, 
his temper often grows morose, irritable, suspicious, misan- 
thropic, and at length some unhappy and erroneous impres- 
sion fastens upon his imagination, and maintaining despotic 
sway over all his thoughts and feelings, he becomes a con- 
firmed monomaniac. 

Obdurate sorrow has sometimes caused a total wreck of 
all the powers and affections of the mind, leaving a hopeless 
dementia as its mournful sequel. 

The opulent or higher classes would appear to be more 
exposed to moral sufferings and their morbid consequences, 
than those who occupy humbler ranks in society. " Even 
those superior intellectual advantages of education," says 
Dr. Heid, " to which the more opulent are almost exclusively 
admitted, may, in some cases, open only new avenues to sor- 
row. The mind, in proportion as it is expanded, exposes a 
larger surface to impression." The rich and cultivated have 
generally more delicate and refined sensibilities, and are 
more exposed than the inferior classes to the vicissitudes of 
fortune, as loss of property, wounded pride, disappointed 
ambition./ 

Numerous instances are recorded, both by ancient and 
modern medical authors, where habitual epilepsy has re- 
sulted from the baneful influence of moral calamities. 



264 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Palsies, likewise, and other melancholy nervous affections 
are not uncommonly attributable to the same source. 

When we consider how immediate and forcible is the 
impulse of grief upon the heart, it will excite no surprise 
that disease of this organ should sometimes proceed from 
its severe and continued operation. Desault and several 
other French writers have remarked that during the un- 
happy period of the revolution, maladies of the heart and 
aneurisms of the aorta became obviously multiplied. No- 
thing is more common than for derangements of the 
function of the heart, indicated by intermissions, and other 
painful and sometimes dangerous irregularities in its pulsa- 
tions, to be the consequence of lasting anxiety and mental 
dejection ; and such functional disorders, when long con- 
tinued, may even terminate in some fatal change in the 
structure of the organ. 

Examples, indeed, are not wanting where the first in- 
dications of diseases of the heart have been referred to the 
sudden impression of some painful disaster, under which 
the organ sustained a shock from whose violence it could 
never recover. We find an interesting case of this descrip- 
tion recorded by the Chevalier Pelletan, in a memoir 
published by him a number of years since, and while he 
was chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu, in Paris, on certain 
diseases of the heart. The subject of this record was an 
Irishman, thirty-six years of age, and of the most ungovern- 
able passions. Having experienced during the revolution- 
ary Struggle various fortunes and sufferings, he at length, 
on the affairs of France assuming a more favorable aspect, 



GRIEF. 265 

obtained a pension of twelve thousand francs, but which 
was immediately taken from him on the death of the 
patron by whom it had been procured. This last mis- 
fortune, it would seem, completely overthrew him. " He has 
told me a hundred times," says the Chevalier, " that on 
hearing the news of his loss, he immediately felt a dreadful 
weight in his chest. His respiration became fatiguing, and 
the palpitations of his heart assumed an irregularity, which 
had no interruption during the two years and a half that he 
survived his misfortune." 

From the period when deprived of his pension, organic 
disease of the heart appears to have declared itself, and to 
have gone on increasing in all its terrible symptoms, until 
the end of two years and five months, when his strength 
became subdued, and he obtained relief in death. 

On inspecting the body, the heart was found colorless, 
and its whole substance in a remakable state of flaccidity, 
such as the distinguished narrator of this case had never be- 
fore witnessed. " The parietes of the cavities fell together, 
and the flesh of this organ might be compared to the pale 
and shrunken muscles of an old woman ; there was an 
astonishing contrast between the flesh of the heart and that 
of the other muscles of the body." M. Pelletan concluded 
that the heart, in consequence of the violent mental shock, 
was struck with a sort of paralysis, and that death ultimate- 
ly took place from the complete palsy of the organ. It was 
manifestly, however, a case of chronic softening of the heart, 
with loss of color, a peculiar morbid condition which has 
since been recognized. The individual, at any rate, perished 
12 



266 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

of a disease of the heart, the first indications of which imme- 
diately followed a strong impression of grief, and this is all 
that is necessary to our present purpose. 

Dyspepsia is another complaint exceedingly liable to be 
induced under the protracted operation of sorrow. Dr. 
Heberden observes, ' ; there is hardly any part of the body 
which does not sometimes appear to be deeply injured by 
the influence of great dejection of spirits ; and none more 
constantly than the stomach and bowels, which hardly ever 
escape unharassed with pains, an uneasy sense of fulness 
and weight, indigestions, acidities, heartburn, sickness, and 
wind, in such an extraordinary degree, as to threaten a 
choking, and to affect the head with vertigo and confusion."* 
And Dr. Whytt also remarks, that "long continued grief 
and anxiety of mind weaken the tone of the stomach, de- 
stroy the appetite and digestion, occasion thirst, a white 
tongue, flatulence, and other complaints."! 

Chronic inflammation, and even scirrhus and cancer of 
the stomach, will sometimes succeed the deep and prolonged 
influence of the passion I am noticing. Laennec asserts 
that the depressing passions, when long operative, seem to 
contribute to the growth of cancers, and the various other 
accidental productions whioh are unlike any of the natural 
structures of the body .J 

Bonaparte died of an extensive ulceration of the stomach, 

* Commentaries. 

t Observations, &c, p. 207. 

t Traitu de I' Auscultation, &c. 



GRIEF. 267 

which the physicians who inspected his body pronounced to 
be cancerous. Now, that his malady was originated or excit- 
ed by the sorrow and chagrin arising from his painful reverse 
of fortune, and the wrongs and unkind treatment which he 
received, or fancied he received, while on the island of St. 
Helena, is, to say the least, far from being improbable. The 
father of Napoleon having fallen a victim to cancer of the 
stomach, many have thought that a predisposition to this 
disease was inherited by the Emperor. Admitting such to 
have been the fact, we can then only regard his complaint 
as developed and hastened, not as primarily produced, by 
the depressing passions which tormented the latter period 
of his existence. No distinct tokens of the ailment which 
destroyed him, were, at any rate, disclosed till about a year 
subsequent to his arrival upon the island, when he first 
began to complain of an uneasy sensation in his stomach 
and right side. It was not, however, until October of the 
following year that he was subjected to any medical treat- 
ment. From this time the disease went on slowly, though 
steadily advancing, and on the fifth of May, 1821, as the 
day was about closing, this extraordinary man yielded to its 
power, and his mighty spirit rested for ever from its vexa- 
tions and sufferings. 

The liver is also very subject, earlier or later, to partici- 
pate in the morbid effects of mental dejection. At first its 
secretion is apt to be diminished or obstructed, whence con- 
stipation of the bowels, sallowness of the skin, and a train of 
symptoms generalized under the familiar term bilious, com- 
monly supervene, passing at times even into decided jaun- 



268 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

dice. Biliary concretions, or gall-stones, are said to be very- 
frequent in such as have experienced long continued moral 
despondency, and it has likewise been asserted that they are 
generally found in the gall-bladder of the victims of suicide. 
M. Pelletan observes that he has ascertained this fact a 
great many times in subjects who had been induced to self- 
murder by lasting distress, but never in those who had com- 
mitted it on account of sudden grief and despair, such as 
happens after losses in gaming, or from disappointed love. 

Even fatal organic changes may sometimes be induced 
in the liver by the operation of deep and prolonged mental 
sufferings. Such, however, can scarce be regarded as a com- 
mon result, unless the individual, through the influence of 
climate, is disposed to hepatic disease, or, driven on by the 
weight of his afflictions, adds the morbid effect of intemper- 
ance to that of the moral cause. 

The depression of sorrow, as of fear, conduces to the ac- 
tion both of contagion, and of epidemic influences, and is 
also, like that of fear, unfriendly to the restorative processes 
in all diseases and injuries of the body. Every one knows 
that the danger of sickness becomes essentially aggravated 
by mental afflictions. And what judicious surgeon but 
would feel diminished confidence in the success of an impor- 
tant operation, were the spirits of its subject borne down by 
the pressure of grief? 

When sorrow becomes settled and obstinate, the whole 
vital economy must, ere a long while, experience its baneful 
effects. Thus the circulation languishes, nutrition becomes 



GRIEF. 269 

imperfect, perspiration is lessened, and the animal tempera- 
ture is sustained with difficulty ; the extremities being in a 
special manner liable to suffer from coldness. The skin, 
moreover, grows pale and contracted, the eye loses its wonted 
animation, deep lines, indicative of the distress within, mark 
the countenance, and the hairs soon begin to whiten or fall 
out. The effect of the painful passions in depriving the 
hairs of their coloring matter, is many times really astonish- 
ing. Bichat states that he has known five or six instances, 
where, under the oppression of grief, the hair has lost its 
color in less than eight days. And he farther adds that the 
hair of a person of his acquaintance became almost entirely 
white in the course of a single night, upon the receipt of 
melancholy intelligence.* 

The sleep of the afflicted is generally diminished, broken, 
disturbed by gloomy and terrifying fancies, haunted and 
distressed by a revival, in new and modified forms, of their 
waking sorrows, and thus is rarely granted to them even the 
paltry solace of a few hours' oblivion to their sufferings ; and 
repose is oftentimes almost a stranger to the couch of misery. 

" Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep ; 
He, like the world, his ready visit pays 
Where Fortune smiles: the wretched he forsakes; 
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, 
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear."t 



* Anatomie Generale. t Young. 



270 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The nervous system, subjected to the depressing influ- 
ence of which I have been speaking, soon becomes shattered, 
and soul and body mutually wearing upon each other, the 
energies of both at last sink into irretrievable decay. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

GRIEF CONTINUED. DESPAIR AND SUICIDE. GRIEF UNDERGOES 

CERTAIN MODIFICATIONS, AND IS MORE OR LESS BLUNTED BY 

TIME, ACCORDING TO THE NATURE OF ITS CAUSES. SEVERE 

IS OFTEN BORNE WITH MORE RESIGNATION THAN LIGHTER 
SORROW. IN YOUTH, GRIEF IS APT TO BE ACUTE AND TRAN- 
SIENT, IN AGE, CHRONIC AND LASTING. 

Despair is the name by which we express that extremity of 
moral depression, against which the mind has no power of 
reaction. Under this dreadful feeling, no ray of hope, no 
sunbeam of joy, breaks in upon the Cimmerian darkness of 
the soul. To one who has reached this utter state of des- 
pondency, life is no longer desirable ; the charms of nature 
or of art call forth no throb of delight in his dark spirit, and 
the cheerful earth spreads out before him like some gloomy 
and barren wilderness. 

" He now no more, as once, delighted views 
Declining twilight melt in silvery dews, 
No more the moon a soothing lustre throws, 
To calm his care, and cheat him of his woes, 



272 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

But anguish drops from Zephyr's fluttering wing", 
Veiled is the sun, and desolate the spring, 
The glittering rivers sadly seem to glide, 
And mental darkness shrouds creation's pride."* 

Despair may proceed from a sense of blasted fame, deep 
humiliation, or wounded self-love, under which existence, to 
the proud man, becomes an unremitting torture. It may, 
in like manner, follow blighted expectations, irretrievable 
losses, and suddenly ruined fortune, — as happens often to 
the gamester; and it oftentimes attends remorse of con- 
science, whether for real or imaginary offences, and great 
public calamities, as destructive epidemics, unhappy political 
revolutions, or other grave national misfortunes. 

Remorse sometimes becomes the occasion of the most 
hopeless despondence, and frequently where there is no real 
cause for it, except in the individual's own morbid sensi- 
bility. It has been said, indeed, that "remorse is often 
felt most acutely by those who have the least reason for 
self-accusation." Some persons become utterly wretched 
from the false and idle notion that they have been useless 
to the world, have done no good to their fellow-creatures, 
have been unfaithful stewards, &o, and this idea, preying 
upon an unnatural nervous susceptibility, has even provoked 
self-destruction. The most deep wounding and even fatal 
BtingS of conscience sometimes follow, in highly sensitive 
natures, upon unfortunate, though unpurposed results of 

* Merry's Pains of Memory. 



DESPAIR. 273 

actions. " A disastrous result," says Dr. Beid, " not un- 
frequently reflects the horror of guilt upon that conduct, 
which would otherwise have escaped any injurious imputa- 
tion, which would have been deemed innocent in its char- 
acter, had it proved so in its consequences A man's 

character may be shaded by the accidents, as well as by the 
actions, of his life. And perhaps, even conscience itself is 
seldom more deeply wounded by the stings of guilt, than it 
sometimes has been by the arrows of fortune." He men- 
tions in illustration the singular history of Simon Brown, 
" the dissenting clergyman, who fancied that he had been 
deprived by the Almighty of his immortal soul, in conse- 
quence of having accidentally taken away the life of a high- 
wayman, although it was done in the act of resistance to his 
threatened violence, and in protection of his own person. 
"Whilst kneeling upon the wretch whom he had succeeded 
in throwing upon the ground, he suddenly discovered that 
his prostrate enemy was deprived of life."* 

Contrition for absolute guilt when yielded to as a mere 
passive, unprolific feeling, is liable to be followed by a deep 
and hopeless moral despondence, and to which both mental 
and physical enegies at last fall a sacrifice. But when it 
takes the character of an actuating sentiment, then do its 
sufferings become materially lightened, and its effects are 
alike propitious to the individual, and useful to society. 
The following reflections on this subject are well worthy the 
serious meditation of all repentant sinners. 

* Essays, &c. 
12* 



274 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

"Remorse itself is considered, perhaps too indiscrimi- 
nately, as a compensation for misconduct. When it is an 
unproductive feeling merely, and not a regenerating princi- 
ple, instead of mitigating, it can serve only to aggravate our 
offences. Repentance, sentimentally indulged, often stands 
in the way of a practical reformation. The pressure of con- 
scious criminality ought to be sufficient to rouse into action, 
but not so great as to crush altogether the powers of the 
mind. Contrition is most easily indulged in a state of 
indolence and solitude ; but can be alleviated only by 
strenuous efforts in the service of society. The errors of 
our past life are not to be atoned by wasting the remainder 
of it in a sedentary grief, or in idle lamentations. Every 
good deed which a man performs, lightens, in a certain 
degree, the load of recollected guilt. Active duty is alone 
able to counteract the injury, or to obliterate the stain, of 
transgression. 

" In even aggravated cases of remorse, much may be 
done towards relief, if the patient have resolution enough to 
administer to himself ; to awaken from the lethargy of a 
vain regret ; and make every atonement in his power for 
any wrong that he has committed, or any moral law which 
he has broken. A man may compensate to society, for an 
injury that is perhaps irreparable to an individual ; and by 
the extraordinary exertions of a penitentiary benevolence, 
be the means of producing a quantity of happiness that is 
equivalent to the misery which his former vices or errors 
may have occasioned."* 

* Rcid's Kssnys, &c. 



DESPAIR. 275 

In those especially of timid, gloomy, and superstitious 
dispositions, despair will not unfrequently result from in- 
judiciously awakened religious terrors ; the deluded in- 
dividual conceiving himself an outcast from Grod's mercy, 
predestined to the eternal horrors and torments which mad 
bigotry has portrayed to his fancy. " There is a kind of 
Melancholy" says Dr. George Cheyne, "which is called 
Religious, because 'tis conversant about Matters of Re- 
ligion ; although often the Persons so distempered have 
little solid Piety. And this is merely a bodily Disease, 
produced by an ill Habit or Constitution, wherein the 
nervous System is broken and disordered, and the Juices 
are become viscid and gleivy. This Melancholy arises 
generally from a Disgust or Disrelish of worldly Amuse- 
ments and Creature- Comforts, whereupon the Mind turns 
to Religion for Consolation and Peace : But as the Person 
is in a very imperfect and unmortified State, not duly 
instructed and disciplined, and ignorant how to govern him- 
self, there ensues Fhtctuation and Tndocility, Scrupulosity, 
Horror, and Despair."* 

There is a species of mental despondence, the offspring 
of great public calamities, which produces a strange effect 
upon our moral nature ; begetting, at times, even a careless- 
ness of existence ; and where great numbers, driven on to 
despair, precipitate the termination of their own existence. 
Hecker tells us that Lubeck, at that time the Venice of the 
North, with an overflowing population, was thrown into such 

* On Health and Long Life. London, 1734, p. 157. 



276 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

consternation by the eruption of the plague, or Black Death 
of the fourteenth century, that the citizens destroyed them- 
selves as if in frenzy. 

It is true that man's full energies can only be elicited 
by great afflictions and great dangers, if they be not so aggra- 
vated as to overwhelm, and benumb with despair. They put 
our self-love and self-denial to the true test, and form the 
rightful assay both of our moral and intellectual nature. 
No one has been proved who has not been tried. But then as 
they may bring out the brightest points of human character, 
so also may they its darkest shades. It seems oftentimes 
that the more precarious is the tenure by which man holds 
his existence, the more desperate, wicked, and reckless of 
life does he become. Hence amid the ravages of war or 
pestilence, when no one feels secure of his being even from 
hour to hour, all laws human and divine are often set at de- 
fiance, and the most appalling cruelties enacted by the infatu- 
ated, despairing people. I will not here speak of great poli- 
tical revolutions where each one's life, and all that renders 
life dear, arc in constant jeopardy — every body knows the 
black history of crime which marks the progress of these 
terrible disruptions in human society — but will only cite a 
few facts corroborative of the foregoing assertions, from the 
history of one of those fearful pestilences where nature lets 
loose her destructive influences upon wide regions of the 
earth. ' ; It speaks," says its historian, " of terrible disas- 
ters, of despair, and unbridled demoniacal passions. It 
shows us the abyss of general licentiousness, in consequence 



DESPAIR. 277 

of a universal pestilence which extended from China to 
Iceland and Greenland."* 

In this desolating epidemic — the Black Death, or Black 
Plague of the fourteenth century — it is stated that at least 
one quarter of the population of the old world was destroyed 
in the space of four years ; and that some countries, and 
among them England, lost more than double that proportion 
of their inhabitants in the course of a few months. Kairo, 
according to Hecker, lost daily of her inhabitants, when 
the plague was most violent, from ten to fifteen thousand. 
China is said to have lost more than thirteen millions. In- 
dia was depopulated.- Tartary, Mesopotamia, Syria, &c, 
were covered with dead bodies. In Caramania and Cassa- 
rea, none were left alive. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabit- 
ants. In the report made to Pope Clement, at Avignon, 
it was stated that throughout the East, probably with the 
exception of China, twenty-three millions eight hundred and 
forty thousand people perished by this plague. 

" In many places in France not more than two out of 
twenty of the inhabitants were left alive, and the capital 
felt the fury of the plague, alike in the palace and the cot." 

" In Avignon, the Pope found it necessary to consecrate 
the Bhone, that bodies might be thrown into the river with- 
out delay, as the churchyards would no longer hold them." 

The whole duration of the destructive violence of this 
pestilence in Europe, was, with the exception of Russia, 
from the year 1347 to 1350 ; and the loss of its inhabitants 

* Hecker's Epidemics, &c. 



278 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

by the disease is set down at twenty-five millions. Yet the 
human race speedily recovered itself from this incredible 
desolation ; the past mortality was soon repaired — as has 
been observed to happen after all wasting epidemics — by a 
more rapid reproduction, (for nature, although seemingly 
regardless of individuals, ever exhibits a provident care of 
species.) and the world aroused from its torpor and depres- 
sion to new life, and new power of action. 

Under such a general and appalling calamity, with the 
awful terrors of death menacing every one, surely might it 
be thought that the human heart would have been softened, 
sobered, renovated. — awakened to moral and religious re- 
flection. But what says the historian 1 " Morals were de- 
teriorated every where, and the service of God was, in a 
great measure, laid aside." The masses of the people, as it 
appears, became generally hardened, selfish, avaricious, cor- 
rupted, and, by a sort of reckless despair, were urged on- 
ward to all manner of enormities. 

The cruelties enacted at this time on the part of the 
Chistians towards the Jews, on the alleged ground that the 
latter had poisoned the wells, are in the highest degree re- 
proachful to our nature. The promise to embrace Chris- 
tianity, and submitting themselves to baptism, could alone 
save this unjustly oppressed people from a painful death. 
Few, however, would accept life on terms like these. At 
Strasburg, two thousand Jews were burnt alive upon a 
large BO&ffold erected in their own burial ground. All the 
Jews in Basle, whose number was large, were inclosed in a 
wooden building constructed for the purpose, and burnt 



DESPAIR. 279 

together with it. at the mere instigation of the mob. In 
Mayence alone, twelve thousand Jews were cruelly mar- 
tyred. " At Eslington the whole Jewish community burned 
themselves in their synagogue ; and mothers were often 
seen throwing their children on the pile, to prevent their 
being baptized, and then precipitating themselves into the 
flames. In short, whatever deeds fanaticism, revenge, 
avarice, and desperation, in fearful combination, could insti- 
gate mankind to perform — and where in such a case is the 
limit? — were executed in the year 1349, throughout Ger- 
many, Italy, and France, with impunity, and in the eyes of 
all the world. It seemed as if the plague gave rise to scan- 
dalous acts and frantic tumults, not to mourning and grief: 
and the greater part of those who, by their education and 
rank, were called upon to raise the voice of reason, them- 
selves led on the savage mob to murder and to plunder." 
il Many breathed their last without a friend to smooth their 
dying pillow ; and few indeed were they who departed amid 
the lamentations and tears of their friends and kindred. 
Instead of sorrow and mourning, appeared indifference, fri- 
volity and mirth ; this being considered, especially by the 
females, as conducive to health During the preva- 
lence of the Black Plague, the charitable orders conducted 
themselves admirably, and did as much good as can be done 
by individual bodies, in times of great misery and destruc- 
tion ; when compassion, courage, and the nobler feelings, 
are found but in the few ; while cowardice, selfishness and 
ill-will, with the baser passions in their train, assert the 
supremacy. In place of virtue which had been driven from 



280 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the earth, wickedness every where reared her rebellious 
standard, and succeeding generations were consigned to the 
dominion of her baleful tyranny."* 

In his account of the plague at Athens, Thucydides 
writes, that amid a calamity so violent, and such universal 
despair, things sacred and holy had quite lost their distinc- 
tion. The pestilence first gave rise to those iniquitous acts 
which increased more and more in Athens. " Not any one 
continued resolute enough to form any honest or generous 
design, when so uncertain whether he should live to effect 
it. Whatever he knew could improve the pleasure or satis- 
faction of the present moment, that he determined to be 
honor and interest. Reverence of the gods or of the laws 
of society laid no restraint upon men." Still human nature 
here, as under all conditions, presents many ennobling traits. 
Its dark side is set off by many generous, disinterested, and 
self-sacrificing actions ; but they are performed in private, 
and known therefore but to the few; while wickedness 
stalks abroad, and rears its head every where to public 
view. 

To return to my more immediate topic : — Despair con- 
sisting in utter moral desolation, or the complete absence of 
all hope, abandons every exertion for the future. Thus 
docs it either shun altogether the intercourse of man, bury- 
ing itself in the deepest gloom and solitude, or seeks to les- 
sen the intensity of its misery by violent and undetermined 
action or dissipation. Sometimes it urges on its reckless 

■ Becker's Epidemics, &c. 



DESPAIR. 281 

victim to the most criminal and desperate acts, — to gross 
intemperance, or some more sudden method of throwing off 
a hated existence. Those even who are hopeless of God's 
mercy, and look forward but to everlasting torture hereafter, 
will often hurry themselves to meet the very worst their 
imagination can paint, rather than endure the agony of de- 
spair produced by their dreadful apprehensions ; as one will 
sometimes leap down the dizzy height, the bare view of 
which sickened his brain, and filled his soul with terror. 

When despair does not impel to such rash deeds, all 
consciousness of suffering either becomes lost in insanity, or 
the physical energies soon yield to its overwhelming influ- 
ence. Existence can rarely last long under the privation of 
every enjoyment and the extinction of every hope. 

Grief, in whatever measure it may exist, will always be 
most obstinate and dangerous in those unengaged in active 
pursuits, and who have consequently leisure to brood over 
their troubles in silence and solitude. Bodily and mental 
activity, and more especially when the result of necessity, 
must, by creating fresh trains of association, and diverting 
the thoughts into new channels, tend to weaken the poig- 
nancy of affliction. Nothing, in truth, serves more effectu- 
ally to lighten the calamities of life, than steady and inter- 
esting employment. It is, as I conceive, for the reason that 
females are generally exempt from the cares and excitements 
of business, and confined at home to their own relatively 
tranquil domestic duties, that they so much oftener pine and 
sicken under wounded affections, than our own more active 
and busy sex. It is a fact which has been often noted in 



282 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the history of fleets and armies, that when actively engaged 
in warlike duties, the troops are comparatively little subject 
to physical disease or moral despondence. Dr. Good ob- 
serves that :: suicide is frequent in the distress of sieges, in 
the first alarm of civil commotion, or when they have sub- 
sided into a state of calmness, and the mischiefs they have 
induced are well pondered ; but it seldom takes place in the 
activity of a campaign, whatever may be the fatigue, the pri- 
vations, or the sufferings endured. On the fall of the Ro- 
man empire, and throughout the revolution of France, self- 
destruction was so common at home, as at last to excite but 
little attention. It does not appear, however, to have 
stained the retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon, 
and, according to M. Falret, was rare in the French army 
during its flight from Moscow."* 

The subject of suicide, referred to in the above quota- 
tion, involving as it docs so many curious facts and inquiries, 
and being so frequent a consequence of the pressure of grief, 
a few general remarks upon it may not be deemed irrelevant 
to our present matter. 

Suicide in ancient days, and particularly among the Ro- 
mans when they were at the summit of their glory, was, un- 
der many circumstances, not merely excused, but looked up- 
on as a praiseworthy and heroic act ; and it was even held 
to be base and cowardly to cling to existence under suffer- 
ing and ignominy. The Stoics countenanced it. Many of 
the noblest of the Roman commanders — among whom 13ru- 

* Study of Medicine. 



suicide. 283 

tus may be mentioned — when the fortune of war turned 
against them, chose a voluntary death sooner than bear the 
disgrace of a defeat ; and this was regarded as a glorious 
consummation of their lives. 

Cato the younger has, both in ancient and modern times, 
been held up as an illustrious example of stern and virtuous 
patriotism, because he took his own life rather than submit 
to the dominion of Cassar. Cato's suicide, as often happened 
in those days, showed the most determined and desperate 
resolution, and it has frequently been lauded on this very 
account. He first stabbed himself, but owing to an inflam- 
mation which at the time affected his hand, did not strike 
hard enough at once to complete the work of death, but fall- 
ing from his bed in his struggles, his son and friends were 
alarmed and entered his room, where they found him welter- 
ing in his blood, and with his bowels fallen out, but yet 
alive. The physician, perceiving the bowels uninjured, put 
them back and began to sew up the wound ; but Cato in the 
meanwhile, coming a little to himself, '-'thrust away the phy- 
sician, tore open the wound, plucked out his own bowels, and 
immediately expired." Great honors were paid to the body 
by all the people of Utica, and Ccesar himself is reported to 
have said that he envied Cato his death.* 

The Roman Lucretia. because she plunged a dagger into 
her breast rather than survive her ravished honor, has ac- 
quired a fame which will be likely to endure as long as 
female virtue is regarded. And of Portia, the daughter of 

* Plutarch. Life of Cato the younger. 



284 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Cato and wife of Brutus, who, being cut off from other 
means, killed herself by forcing burning coals into her mouth, 
or, as is commonly told, by swallowing fire, Plutarch says, 
she "put a period to her life in a manner worthy of her 
birth and of her virtue." 

Plato considered suicide to be justifiable under circum- 
stances of severe and unavoidable misfortune : but for such 
as committed it from faintheartedness, or a want of moral 
courage to confront the ordinary chances of life, he directed 
an ignominious burial. Virgil, however, seems to have re- 
garded it as unexceptionably criminal, having assigned a 
place in the shades below for all those who have voluntarily 
taken off their own lives, as appears from the following pas- 
sage in his iEneid. 

" Proxima deinde tenent moesti loca, qui sibi lethum 
Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi 
Projecere animas. Quam vellent aethere in alto 
Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores ! 
Fata obstant, tristique palus inamabilis unda. 
Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet."* 

" The next, in place and punishment, are they 
Who prodigally threw their souls away — 
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state, 
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate. 
With late repentance, now they would retrieve 
The bodies they forsook, and wish to live; 

* Lib. vi., v. 431. 



suicide. 285 

Their pains and poverty desire to bear, 

To view the light of heav'n, and breathe the vital air : 

But fate forbids ; the Stygian floods oppose, 

And with nine circling streams the captive souls inclose."* 

We read that a law of the elder Tarquin forbade the 
body of the suicide the right of sepulture. In Athens, also, 
a penal enactment existed in regard to self-murder. Ly- 
curgus, the famous Spartan lawgiver, justified this act by his 
own example. 

In certain countries people sacrifice themselves in ac- 
cordance with the customs of society, as the Hindoo widow, 
who is voluntarily consumed on the funeral pile of her hus- 
band ; or under the belief that they are performing a reli- 
gious act acceptable to their gods, as the Indian devotee who 
throws himself beneath the car of Juggernaut. 

" There are certain governments," Montaigne tells us, 
'•which have taken upon them to regulate the justice, and 
proper time of voluntary deaths." And he says on the au- 
thority of Valerius Maximus, that " a poison prepared from 
hemlock, at the expense of the public, was kept in times past 
in the city of Marseilles, for all who had a mind to hasten 
their latter end, after they had produced the reasons for their 
design to the six hundred who composed their senate ; nor 
was it lawful for any person to lay hands upon himself, oth- 
erwise than by leave of the magistracy, and upon just occa- 
sions, "f 

* Dryden's Translation, 
f Essays. 



286 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

In civilized countries self-murder, although unhappily 
of so frequent occurrence, finds at the present time few 
advocates, being generally regarded with sentiments of the 
deepest horror, and among some people and sects the rites 
of Christian sepulture are denied to its victims. To this 
denial of Christian obsequies Shakspeare has allusion in 
the scene of Ophelia's burial, in his play of Hamlet. 



" Laer. What ceremony else 1 

1 Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd 
As we have warranty : Her death was doubtful ; 
And, but that great command o'ersways the order, 
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd 
Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers, 
Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her: 

Laer. Must there no more be done ? 

1 Priest. No more be done ! 

We should profane uie service of the dead, 
To sing a requiem, and such rest to her 
As to peace-parted souls." 



In England, at one period, the body of the suicide was 
cast into the highway. In aftertime it was buried where 
three roads met. In France there was a time when the 
household goods of the suicide were given to the proprietor 
of the soil on which the deed was perpetrated. Afterwards 
his body was drawn through the streets upon a hurdle. At 
the present day these laws — if they still exist on the statute- 
book — have become obsolete. It is said, however, that a 



suicide. 287 

law exists in Saxony by which the body of the suicide is 
given up for public dissection. 

One might suppose that nothing short of the most con- 
summate and hopeless misery could overcome the strong 
feeling that binds us to existence; and it is generally true 
that only the severest moral afflictions, either real or im- 
aginary, or sudden transports of passion which, for the time, 
vanquish the reason, can provoke to a deed so rash and un- 
natural as self murder. Still there are exceptions, nor are 
they rare, where its causes are of a different and less ex- 
plainable character. Physical sufferings may sometimes be 
its cause, though far less often than those of a moral nature. 

That, like the different forms of insanity with which it 
is so frequently associated, it is often hereditary, is now 
proved beyond question. There are few persons, it is pre- 
sumed, who will not be able to call to mind examples of the 
hereditary transmission of a pro ^ensity to suicide. It is 
remarkable, too, that the disposition to it will sometimes be 
developed in different members of a family at nearly the 
same period of life. Esquirol relates of a man, whose 
father and grandfather had destroyed themselves when 
fifty-three years old, that at the age of fifty he began to 
experience the temptation to suicide, and was satisfied 
that he should die as they had done. He also cites from 
Voltaire an example where a man of good habits, mature 
age, and a serious profession, committed suicide, and left to 
the officers of his native city a written defence of the act. 
His father and brother had before destroyed themselves at 
the same age with himself. He further cites from Dr. Gall 



288 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

an instance where seven brothers, possessed of large for- 
tunes, in excellent health, honorable in their lives, and held 
in high and general estimation, all committed suicide when 
between thirty and forty years of age. Numerous examples 
might be cited where the whole, or nearly the whole of the 
members of large families have, one after another, fallen by 
their own hands. In some cases this hereditary propensity 
begins to be exprienced at quite an early age. 

In the opinion of M. Falret, of all the forms of melan- 
choly, that which tends to suicide is most frequently hered- 
itary ; and he gives an instance where all the female 
members of a family for three succeeding generations com- 
mitted or attempted suicide. 

"We read that a club existed in Prussia, comprising six 
members, all of whom, in accordance with its rules, termi- 
nated their lives by their own hands. And of one also in 
Paris in more recent times, a regulation of which was that 
one of its number should be selected every year to destroy 
himself. 

Dr. Millingen knew a person who could never drink tea 
without experiencing a desire to commit suicide, "and 
nothing could arouse him from this state of morbid excite- 
ment but the pleasure of destroying something, books, 
papers, or any thing within his reach. Under no other 
circumstances than this influence of tea were these fearful 
aberrations observed."* Esquirol informs us that M. Alibcrt 
attended a lady who always felt a desire to destroy herself 

* Curiosities of Medical Experience. 



suicide. 289 

after eating; and that she was often discovered after dinner 
in the act of passing a cord around her neck, so that it be- 
came necessary to keep a close watch upon her. Here some 
morbid condition of the digestive function was doubtless the 
exciting cause of the propensity. Persons have killed them- 
selves out of spite, or from malignity. Also from the hopes 
of bettering their condition ; and to escape their agonizing 
fears of death, or future punishment. In some persons 
attempts at suicide are always excited by intoxication ; and 
despair at not being able to conquer the debasing appetite 
for intoxicating drinks has been the occasion of self-destruc- 
tion. Esquirol records an instance of a man, thirty years of 
age, and in excellent health, killing himself a few days after 
marriage, because his wife did not come up to his high-raised 
expectations. 

Nostalgia, ennui, or weariness of life, from perverted or 
exhausted sensibilities, rank among the not unusual causes 
of suicide. Some persons, without any other evidence of ill 
health, become affected with an unaccountable torpor and 
listlessness, both of mind and body ; every effort of either 
becoming difficult and irksome to them. They consequently 
grow discouraged, fancy themselves useless, or perhaps a 
burden to their families and to society, and are thus impelled 
to throw off what they deem to be a valueless existence. 
There are those who having exhausted all life's resources, 
and being left without hopes or desires, and almost without 
sensations, experience a fearful sense of desolation, a dread- 
ful void within, which nothing can supply. To such all is 
vapid, barren, sunless. They covet and seek death. They 
13 



290 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

have surfeited at life's feast, and hurry themselves inde- 
cently from the board. 

There are periods in society, when, from causes which 
are not always easy of explanation, suicide becomes unusu- 
ally prevalent, so much so as to be entitled an epidemic. 
The state of social morals influences the number of suicides 
in a community ; and the dissemination of speculative and 
mystical opinions in philosophy and religion, may so bewil- 
der the feeble-minded and irresolute, that they will some- 
times rush into the arms of death to escape the painful per- 
plexity in which their puny intellects have become involved. 
The reading of books which defend suicide, have been a 
prolific source of that act. Madame de Stael is cited as say- 
ing, that more suicides have been caused in Germany by the 
reading of Goethe's Werther, than by all the women of that 
country. 

Suicide often owes its origin to the principle of imitation, 
and under such influence has occasionally so extended itself 
in communities, as to be regarded in the light of an epi- 
demic. And where, from native organization, or defect of 
moral culture, fatal propensities exist, the danger from this 
source will be greatly increased. Instances of the epidemic 
extension of suicide from imitation, or sympathy, have been 
recorded both in ancient and modern times. It is related 
by Plutarch in his treatise on the virtue of women, that 
there was a time when all the girls of Miletus were killing 
themselves, and without any apparent cause. Those who 
first destroyed themselves served as examples to others, or 
awakened their imitative propensity, and in this way did 



SUICIDE. 291 

the fatal work spread itself among them until counteracted 
by the stronger influence of shame, it being ordained that 
their dead bodies should be exposed naked to the people. 
It is recorded that there was a period in the history of Ly- 
ons, when its women threw themselves in crowds into the 
Rhone, and without offering any reason for the act. 

Several years since there appeared in the London Medi- 
cal Gazette the following account of an inclination to suicide 
spreading itself in a remarkable manner, and, as was sup- 
posed, through the force of imitation. 

" For about two months an extraordinary number of sui- 
cides, and of attempts at suicide, occurred in London ; 
scarcely a night elapsed but one or more persons threw 
themselves from some bridge, or from the bank, into the 
Thames — for that was the favorite mode of self-destruction 
— till at last the police looked on such an event as a thing 
to be certainly expected and guarded against. The greater 
number of persons thus endangering their lives, exhibited 
no common character of insanity ; had not been regarded as 
of unsound intellect ; -had no cause of utter despair ; had 
scarcely any delusion or mistaken motive. When their lives 
were saved, they did not give any extravagant reason for 
the attempt ; at most they had been vexed by some unto- 
ward circumstance, had had some domestic quarrel, or were 
poor, though hardly destitute. The fury of the epidemic — 
which affected women more than men — was increasing to a 
truly alarming extent, when one of the city magistrates — 
Sir Peter Laurie, who had probably had some advice ten- 
dered him at Bedlam, of which he is the president — deter- 



292 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

mined to try the effects of punishment on all who were 
brought before him for attempts at suicide. The plan suc- 
ceeded admirably; some were punished summarily, some 
were committed to take their trial for attempts at the felony 
of self-murder, and in a very short time — a fortnight at 
most — the rage had disappeared, and suicides became no 
more than usually common." 

The writer of this article relates another remarkable in- 
stance of the same sort, and in which a similar remedy was 
successful. It happened at a garrison, where a strange pro- 
pensity existed among the soldiers to hang themselves on 
lamp-posts. " Night after night were suicides of this kind 
committed, till the commanding officer issued a notice, that 
the body of the next man who put an end to his life, should 
be dragged round the garrison at the cart's tail, and then 
be buried in a ditch. His order was but once put in force, 
and then the epidemic ceased." 

Several persons have committed suicide by throwing 
themselves from the gallery of the monument in London. 
And at one time there seemed to be a growing propensity 
to jump from the Leaning Tower at Pisa; three persons — 
as T learnt from my guide while on a visit to it — having 
thus put a period to their existence ; on which account 
visitors could no longer ascend it without an authorized at- 
tendant. 

A French journal — Archives Genomics — records that 
a boy eleven years of age, being reproved by his father in 
the fields, went home, put on his suit of holyday clothes, 
procured from the cellar a bottle of holy water, and placed 



suicide. 293 

it beside him, and then hung himself from the cross-beam 
of the bed. It appears that the uncle of this boy had a 
short time previously destroyed himself in a similar man- 
ner, having also first placed near him a bottle of holy water. 

Even the reading of cases of suicide may sometimes call 
into action this principle of imitation, and lead, it may be, 
to fatal consequences. An instance in illustration occurred 
a number of years since in Philadelphia, an account of which 
was published at the time by Isaac Parrish, M. D., of that 
city. The subject was a girl in her fifteenth year, who had 
been carefully brought up, and whose situation in life was 
apparently every way agreeable. It seems that early in the 
morning of the day of her death, " she had held a conversa- 
tion with a little girl residing in the next house, in which she 
mentioned having lately read in the newspaper of a man 
who had been unfortunate in his business, and had taken 
arsenic to destroy himself. She also spoke of the apothe- 
cary's shop near by, and said she frequently went there." 

It appeared that two days prior to her death, she had 
purchased half an ounce of arsenic of a druggist in the 
neighborhood, for the pretended purpose of killing rats, 
which she had used as the instrument of her Own destruc- 
tion.* 

It is a fact well known in respect to certain individuals, 
especially when of a nervous or sensitive temperament, that 
if the thoughts of any particular deed, calculated, from its 
criminal or hazardous character, to make a deep impression 

* American Journal of the Medical Sciences, for November, 1837. 



294 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

on the feelings, chance to be strongly awakened in the mind, 
they cannot be banished, but becoming more and more con- 
centrated, a propensity, sometimes too powerful for resist- 
ance, to the commission of such deed, will actually follow. 
"Were such an one now to become deeply affected — either 
from his connection with its subject, or its peculiar circum- 
stances — by the occurrence of a suicide, the idea might con- 
tinue pertinaciously to haunt his imagination, and an un- 
conquerable inclination to the like unnatural deed be the 
consequence. And that murders are sometimes committed 
under the same mysterious and urgent impulse, is a fact too 
well established for denial. I remember an instance in 
point, which, many years since, came within my immediate 
knowledge. A young female, while sitting with an infant 
in her arms near a fire, over which hung a large kettle of 
boiling water, suddenly started up, and in a hurried and 
agitated manner ran to a distant part of the room. On 
asking her the reason of this, she, after a little hesitation, 
told me that fixing her eyes on the boiling water, it occur- 
red to her how dreadful it would be should she by accident 
let the child fall into it. " On this idea crossing my mind," 
said she, " I instantly began to feel a propensity to throw 
it in, which soon grew so strong, that had I not forced my- 
self away I must inevitably have yielded to it." 

An unnatural and irresistible impulse has sometimes 
urged on the mother to the destruction of her own offspring. 
Brute animals, as sows and cats, under a like strange per- 
version of instinct, have been known to destroy, and even to 
cat their young. 



HOMICIDAL PROPENSITY. 295 

" A country woman, twenty-four years of age, of a bil- 
ious sanguine temperament, of simple and regular habits, 
but reserved and sullen manners, had been ten days con- 
fined with her first child, when suddenly having her eyes 
fixed upon it, she was seized with the desire of strangling 
it. This idea made her shudder ; she carried the infant to 
its cradle, and went out in order to get rid of so horrid a 
thought. The cries of the little being, who required nour- 
ishment, recalled her to the house. She experienced still 
more strongly the impulse to destroy it. She hastened 
away again, haunted by the dread of committing a crime of 
which she had such horror ; she raised her eyes to heaven, 
and went into a church to pray. 

" The unhappy mother passed the whole day in a constant 
struggle between the desire of taking away the life of her 
infant, and the dread of yielding to the impulse. She con- 
cealed, until the evening, her agitation from her confessor, a 
respectable old man, the first who received her confidence, 
who, having talked to her in a soothing manner, advised her 
to have recourse to medical assistance."* 

The propensity to infanticide in a mother has alternated 
with an equally strong .one to suicide ; and the latter deed 
has been attempted to prevent the perpetration of the for- 
mer, the impulse to which was felt to be invincible. 

The following case was first published among other sim- 
ilar ones by M. Marc. It occurred in G-ermany, in the 
family of Baron Humboldt, and has the testimony of this dis- 

* Prichard on Insanity, cited from Dr. Michu. 



296 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tinguished individual. The mother of the family returning 
home one day, met a servant who had previously given no 
cause of complaint, in a state of the greatest agitation. She 
desired to speak with her mistress alone, threw herself on 
her knees and entreated to be sent out of the house ; giving 
as a reason, that whenever she undressed the little child 
she nursed, " she was struck with the whiteness of its skin, 
and experienced the most irresistible desire to tear it in 
pieces." Esquirol relates the case of a female who was re- 
sistlessly impelled to homicide in order to shed blood, for 
the sight and taste of which she* had exhibited a strong rel- 
ish even from early life. Hence she would often eat her 
meat raw ; and loved to cut in pieces birds or other animals 
which fell into her hands. 

I have known persons, who on taking a sharp weapon 
into their hands, would almost always experience a disposi- 
tion to stab those who chanced to be near them. This 
homicidal propensity has been experienced even in. children, 
from eight to ten years of age. 

In view of such cases as have been cited, and enough of 
them may be found on record, a form of insanity is now 
generally admitted, where the afflicted individual, without 
the slightest apparent disorder of the intellect, or any other 
discoverable mental aberration, and under a horrid convic- 
tion of the atrocity of the deed to which he is blindly im- 
pelled, and moreover devoid of all malicious intent, is 
attacked with a violent, and sometimes insurmountable pro- 
pensity to take life ; often that of some particular individual, 
a friend, or perhaps one bound to him by the closest ties of 



HOMICIDAL PROPENSITY. 297 

kindred. This has been termed homicidal monomania, and 
homicidal madness, and is brought under a variety of men- 
tal disease called moral insanity ; that is, where the moral 
feelings only become perverted, the intellect or reasoning 
principle being no further affected than through the influ- 
ence of their morbid excitement or perversion. There is, 
however, another variety of homicidal madness, but whose 
consideration would be foreign to our present purpose, de- 
pendent on actual hallucinations, in which the individual 
is urged on to the commission of murder, under a fancied 
command from heaven, or some other similar delusion of the 
imagination. 

This homicidal propensity of which I have been speaking 
is apt to be periodical, and is sometimes connected with 
marked bodily disorder. Thus it has been preceded by 
wakefulness, headache, thirst, feverishness, internal heat, 
constipation, colic pains, and various disorders of the stomach 
and bowels. A case is recorded where epilepsy, to which 
the patient had been subject during sixteen years, suddenly 
changed its character, without any apparent cause, and in 
place of the fits there occurred from time to time an insu- 
perable desire to commit murder. The approach of these 
attacks was sometimes felt for many hours, and occasionally 
for a whole day, before they actually seized the individual, 
and on such premonition he would entreat to be tied down, 
to prevent him from the commission of the crime to which 
he was blindly impelled. 

The inclination to homicide exhibits the same remark- 
able tendency to spread from the force of imitation, as we 
13* 



298 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

have previously shown exists in that to suicide. In proof of 
this examples enough will be found on record. "We read that 
the trial of Henriette Cornier, in France, for infanticide — 
it becoming, from its peculiar and deeply exciting circum- 
stances, a subject of very general attention and conversa- 
tion — occasioned in many respectable females a strong 
propensity to the same unnatural deed. Esquirol speaks of 
a woman brought to trial for cutting off the head of a child 
whom she hardly knew ; and remarks that the trial being 
widely published, produced, through the power of imitation, 
many cases of homicidal monomania. 

It is, in part at least, on this principle of imitation that 
we are to account for the repeated attempts that were once 
made on the lives of Louis Philippe and Queen Victoria ; 
and the unavoidable publicity of such attempts, and the fac- 
titious consequence into which their miserable authors were 
often elevated, doubtless contributed to spread the disposi- 
tion to them. 

That unhappy instances do now and then occur, where 
persons acting under this insane impulse are condemned 
to the punishment of murder, is scarce to be questioned. 
Still, such morbid impulses should be admitted with a good 
deal of caution, or they would be unwarrantably pleaded to 
shield the murderer. Human justice is necessarily imper- 
fect, and it cannot be otherwise than that some must fall 
the unmerited victims to its imperfection. But as laws are 
designed to be preventive, or are instituted for the security 
of the community, such impulsive homicides should be per- 
manently confined, inasmuch as they are fully as dangerous 



suicide. 299 

as the rational assassin, if rationality can be predicated of 
an assassin. The existence of such a morbid impulse may 
be reasonably inferred when there is no discoverable motive 
for the crime committed, and when the perpetrator of it 
makes no effort to escape or to screen himself from punish- 
ment. Sometimes he even appears to experience a re- 
lief from prior agitation and suffering ; is composed, shows 
no regret, or even manifests a degree of satisfaction at the 
deed. We have it on the authority of Esquirol, that the 
impulse to murder and suicide are to be greatly feared in 
those who are in dread of eternal damnation, and he refers 
to cases in proof, recorded by Sauvages, Eorestus, and 
Pinel. 

Suicide, as previously said, is in some cases to be ascribed 
to a like inscrutable impulse as that which urges to homi- 
cide, and the disposition to it will at times be found to 
alternate, or to be strangely blended with that to homicide ; 
and to be preceded also, or accompanied by manifest physi- 
cal derangements. Striking changes, too, in the moral 
character and habits, are apt to forerun attempts at suicide. 
Thus, those who had before been social, mild, and cheerful, 
as a prelude to this tragic act, will often become solitary, 
morose, gloomy, and misanthropic. Oftentimes do they 
undergo a long and fearful internal struggle, subject to 
remissions and aggravations, against this reasonless impulse, 
before the preservative instinct is wholly vanquished, and 
the unnatural deed is consummated. " A melancholic," 
says Dr. Pinel, " once said to me, ' I am in prosperous cir- 
cumstances, I have a wife and a child who constitute my 



300 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

happiness, I cannot complain of bad health, and still I feel 
a horrible propensity to throw myself into the Seine.' His 
declaration was too fatally verified in the event."* 

There is another strange impulse occasionally witnessed, 
and doubtless intimately allied to that which has been the 
subject of our attention, urging to acts of mischief — as the 
destruction of property — and independent of malevolent 
feeling, or in truth of any apparent motive. I have known 
persons on taking a watch into their hands, to manifest an 
urgent desire to dash it in pieces. And I have seen tum- 
blers and wine-glasses actually broken under the forcible 
influence of such destructive propensity. Children, in like 
manner, will sometimes display an impulsive disposition 
to break their trinkets, even those with which they had been 
most delighted. 

An irresistible propensity to burn, or to set houses on 
fire, without any other evidence of insanity, called incendiary 
monomania, and pyromania, has been admitted by some 
writers on forensic medicine and mental diseases. Esquirol 
admits, on the strength of various recorded cases, that there 
is a variety of monomania without delirium, marked by an 
instinctive desire to burn. A case is cited from Dr. Gall, 
of a woman, who immediately on taking any intoxicating 
drink began to experience an urgent impulse to set fire to 
some building. She had caused fourteen conflagrations be- 
fore being imprisoned. One case has fallen under my 
observation, where a female of about sixteen years of age 

* On Insanity. 



SUICIDE. 301 

twice set fire to the dwelling in which she lived, without 
any motive that could be detected or surmised, and without 
any attempt to conceal the crime or shun its punishment. 
This inclination, like that to suicide and homicide, has a 
tendency to spread through the force of imitation. In G-er- 
many, it appears, on the evidence of German physicians, 
that young girls from nine to twelve, fifteen, and eighteen 
years of age, form the larger proportion of incendiaries. 
The same does not hold true in France, and probably not in 
other countries. 

I have heretofore alluded to that propensity which some 
people experience on looking over the brow of a precipice, 
to cast themselves down. It is, therefore, not improbable 
that some of the suicides which have been accomplished by 
jumping from great heights were unpremeditated, the indi- 
vidual having been suddenly overpowered by the force of such 
inclination. And may it not also be true, that some of the 
deaths ascribed to accidental falls, were in reality occasioned 
by this same insurmountable impulse % 

The relative number of suicides is considerably greater 
in cities than in the country. In Prussia, the city have 
been ascertained to bear to the rural cases, a proportion of 
fourteen to four. M. Guerry, in an essay on the moral 
statistics of France, states that from whatever point we 
start, the relative frequency of suicide will always be found 
to increase as we approach Paris. And the same assertion 
is also made in respect to Marseilles, this town being re- 
garded as the capital of the South. Just the reverse of 
this, though one would scarcely look for such a result, 



302 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

he found to hold true of murders and assassinations, these 
consequently, in relation to the number of inhabitants, 
being the most, where suicides are the least numerous. The 
number of suicides, in proportion to the population, he as- 
certained to be much greater in the north than in the south 
of France ; and that one sixteenth of all committed in 
France, are in the department of the Seine. 

Self-destruction is more common in males than females ; 
in France, according to Esquirol, in the proportion of three 
to one ; and in England and America the ratio is probably 
about the same. In the year 1847 we have reported, for the 
city of New-York, thirty-two cases of suicide, twenty-eight 
of which were of men, and four of women. In 1848, thirty- 
four cases ; twenty-five of men, and nine of women. In 
1849, thirty-five cases; twenty-three men, and twelve wo- 
men. 

In regard to the temperament, the melancholic and bil- 
ious would seem to be most prone to suicide, still it may 
happen to any temperament ; even the sanguine sometimes 
take off their own lives. Esquirol observes that a sreofu- 
lous habit often marts those who terminate their lives, it 
disposing to apathy, indifference, discouragement, ennui. 
In respect to the moral character of suicides, the same au- 
thor remarks that there is nothing consistent; cowards and 
heroes, women and men, the high and the low, the criminal 
and the honest man, may all be driven on to self-murder.* 

Suicide, although it may occur at almost any period of 

* On Insanity. 



SUICIDE. 303 

life, yet there are certain ages when it would appear to be 
more particularly frequent. In a table given by M. Dupin, 
suicide is shown to happen at all ages trom ten to ninety, 
but to attain its greatest frequency from forty to fifty, or in 
middle life, diminishing as we recede from it to either ex- 
treme. This has been explained on the supposition, that 
then, more than at any other period, " the mind is exposed 
to the disturbing influence of disappointed ambition, of do- 
mestic anxiety and distress, and of other causes of chagrin 
and disquietude ; and that it no longer possesses that elas- 
ticity or resiliency of spirit, by which it relieved itself from 
vexing care in more youthful years. 

" The middle-aged man feels, when calamities overtake 
him, that he is less able than he was wont to be, to strug- 
gle against them ; and the mortification at the change of his 
circumstances, coupled with the slender hope of regaining 
his former position, is too apt to prey upon his mind until 
he is driven to commit suicide."* 

All the statistics on the subject to which I have had ac- 
cess, go to prove that suicide is most common in the warm, 
or what are generally regarded as the pleasant months of 
the year. M. Falret, who has written on suicide and hypo- 
chondriasis, believes that a moist, hot, and relaxing atmos- 
phere is conducive to moral despondency, and consequently 
to self-murder; and it is stated in confirmation of such 
opinion, that in the months of June and July, 1806, sixty 
suicides occurred in Paris. In some of the exceeding hot 

* London Medico-Churgical Review, for July, 1837. 



304 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

and relaxing weather of our own summer months, especially 
when lasting through the night, and interfering with the 
needful sleep, a distressing faintness, or sinking, as it is 
often called, at the epigastrium, or region of the stomach, 
much like that attendant on acute grief, is experienced, 
and under the agony of which, the individual, if of a gloomy 
temperament, may sometimes be driven on to the deed we 
are considering. This feeling becomes much more intoler- 
able when, in addition to the heat, one is subjected to the 
tainted air and irritating noises of dirty and crowded 
cities. The experience of all will teach that a high degree 
of temperature can be much better borne if the atmosphere 
be pure, than when it is contaminated with noisome effluvia. 
Such then as are disposed to suicide, should seek, during 
the hot season, the unadulterated air of the open country, 
and more particularly that of the sea-coast. 

The months most prolific in self-destruction in France 
would appear to be May, June, July, and August, and, other 
things being the same, the instances of it become most 
numerous in extremely warm summers. In a report of 
those received during six years, into the department of the 
insane at the Salpetricre, after attempting suicide, Esquirol 
informs us that the attempts were most frequent in the 
summer and spring, and the least so during the three 
months of autumn. lie also shows that insanity most 
often makes its attack in the summer. 

The opinion has heretofore prevailed, that in England 
the foggy and gloomy month of November is the one most 
productive of instances of self-destruction ; such a con- 



SUICIDE. 805 

elusion, however, is not borne out by facts. It appears that 
of the suicides committed in Westminster, from 1812 to 
1824, there were thirty-four in the month of June, while 
but twenty-two happened in the month of November. And 
furthermore, that in 1812, 1815, 1820 and 1824, not a case 
occurred in November.* 

It is a prevalent notion that the variable and gloomy 
weather of the early period of spring, and the latter part of 
autumn in the more northern portions of the United States, 
favors in a special manner the disposition to suicide. Such 
opinion, however, would seem to arise^ rather from some 
fancied association between unpleasant states of the atmos- 
phere, and unhappy moral feelings, than to be based on any 
careful observation of facts. On examining the bills of 
mortality of the city of New-York for the five years prior 
to the publication of the first edition of the present work, I 
found the instances of suicide to have been most numerous 
in the warm and pleasant season of the year. Thus for the 
months of summer, during the term specified, there- were 
fifty-nine cases ; of spring, fifty three ; of autumn, forty-six, 
and of winter but thirty-five. May, generally a very cheer- 
ful and agreeable month in the city of New-York, gave 
twenty-three cases, while February, almost always bleak 
and dreary, afforded but seven. March and November 
exhibited the least number of any months, with the excep- 
tion of January and February. During the two past years 
(1848 and 1849), according to the reports of the city in- 

* Medico-Chirurgical Review, for April, 1837. 



30G MENTAL HYGIENE. 

spector, there are for the summer, twenty-four cases of self- 
murder: for the spring, nineteen; for the autumn, fourteen, 
and for the winter, twelve. The above data are, to be sure, 
limited, yet so far as they go, they are in agreement with 
the observations on the same subject made in France and 
England, and tending to show that the strongest propensity 
to self-destruction exists in the warm season. 

The cases of self-murder vary materially in their re- 
lative number in different countries, as well as in the same 
country at different periods. In France and Germany, if 
statistics on the subject are to be trusted, they considerably 
exceed those in England. This is contrary to the belief 
formerly entertained, certainly by the French, who looked 
upon England as the country above all others where suicide 
prevailed, and ascribed its prevalence there to the humid 
and foggy atmosphere, and dismal skies. '"The English' — 
says Montesquieu, 'frequently destroy themselves without 
any apparent cause to determine them to such an act, and 
even in the midst of prosperity. Among the Romans 
suicide was the effect of education ; it depended upon their 
customs and manner of thinking : with the English it is the 
effect of disease, and depending upon the physical condition 
of the system.' The propensity to this horrid deed, as 
existing independent of the ordinary powerful motives to it, 
sucli as the loss of honor or fortune, is by no means a 
disease peculiar to England: it is far from being of rare 
occurrence in France."* 

* Pinel on Insanity. 



SUICIDE. 307 

In London, as near as can be ascertained, there happen 
annually about a hundred instances of voluntary death. 
And in the whole of England the proportion of cases to the 
number of inhabitants, is set down as about one in nine 
thousand. M. Gruerry states the suicides registered in 
France from 1827 to 1830, to be six thousand nine hundred; 
but as many cases of this nature, either from inadequate data, 
or the importunity of friends, will always be classed under 
the deaths from accident, the actual amount must probably 
be much greater ; and has been estimated to exceed, in the 
ratio of three to one, the number of murders and assassina- 
tions. In the department of the Seine, where the greatest 
proportion occurs, the instances have been shown to be as 
one in every thirty-six hundred inhabitants ; and they seem 
to be yearly increasing in France. M, Charles Dupin has 
shown such increase to have been almost regularly pro- 
gressive in Paris from 1829 to 1836; and later tables prove 
that the number of suicides throughout France is annually 
augmenting. Thus, in 1836 there were registered two 
thousand three hundred and ten cases ; in 1 837, two 
thousand four hundred and thirteen; in 1838, two thou- 
sand five hundred and fifty-six, and in 1839, two thousand 
seven hundred and seventeen. — In 1843, the number of 
suicides in France amounted to three thousand and twenty, 
which exceeded that of 1842 by a hundred and fifty-four; 
of 1841, by two hundred and six; of 1840, by two hundred 
and sixty-three, showing a continued progression from 1829 
to 1844. 

In the city of New- York, the whole number of deaths 



308 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

registered from the first of January, 1805, to the first of 
January, 1842, a period of thirty-seven years, was 164.976, 
of which 809, or one out of 203 f^f are brought under the 
head of suicide. 

Suicide in New-York, so far at least as we may judge 
from the tables of mortality, does not, as in Paris, appear to 
be an increasing vice. On the contrary, it would appear to 
be manifestly diminishing, regarding it in relation to the 
population. Thus, for the five years from the first of Janu- 
ary, 1805, to the first of January, 1810, we have registered 
eighty-one cases of suicide ; which, compared with the mean 
of the city population for this term, that is, 86,07 1-J-, gives 
us an average annual proportion of one case in fifty-three 
hundred and thirteen and a fraction of the inhabitants. 
Now for the same number of years, from the first of Janu- 
ary, 1835, to the first of January, 1840, there are reported 
a hundred and ninety-one cases, and the mean number of 
the inhabitants being 291,399, we have, therefore, for this 
time, an average yearly ratio of one instance of self-murder 
to every seventy-six hundred and twenty-eight and a fraction 
of the population — a very manifest decrease when compared 
with the aforenamed period. 

For the last three years, 1847, 1848, 1849, the whole 
number of deaths in the city of New-York was 55,480 ; of 
which number one hundred and one, or one out of 549 ^ 
arc reported under suicide. 

It can scarce be doubted that in our own, as well as in 
other countries, the ratio of mortality from the cause under 
notice, is considerably greater than is shown by the reported 



SUICIDE. 309 

eases ; since, for reasons which all will understand, many 
unquestionable cases of self-murder will be placed under the 
head of casualties, sudden death, visitation of G-od, &c. 
Esquirol, however, informs us that in the Paris reports are 
included, not barely those who are known to have destroyed 
themselves, whether intentionally or not, but likewise all 
found dead by the police, without its being certainly ascer- 
tained whether their deaths were voluntary, by assassination, 
or from some accidental cause. Hence he accounts for the 
greater relative number of reported examples of suicide in 
Paris than in London — the reports of the latter city em- 
bracing under suicide only such cases as afford grounds for 
believing life was purposely taken off. 

The modes resorted to for self-destruction, vary greatly 
according to age, sex, and various incidental circumstances, 
and the strangest methods are sometimes resorted to. Mo- 
nomaniacs sometimes inflict upon themselves cruelties appa- 
rently of the most dreadful nature, and oftentimes, too, with- 
out experiencing any bodily suffering from them. Women 
much less often have recourse to the pistol or cutting instru- 
ments than men. They more generally choose to hang, 
drown, poison, suffocate, or starve themselves. Suffocation 
by means of carbonic acid gas, from burning charcoal, is a 
common mode of self-destruction in France. But fashion 
and the principle of imitation exercise in this, as in every 
thing else, a remarkable influence. Sometimes two, urged 
on by inordinate passion, as where the course of true love 
does not run smooth, or by extreme misery from other causes, 
resolve reciprocally to destroy each other, or to termi- 



310 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

nate their lives together. And there are those who, unwil- 
ling, or lacking resolution to destroy themselves by their 
own hands, take the life of another that they may be con- 
demned to death. To cases of the latter description has 
been given the name of homicidal suicide. 

The very free internal use of cold water has been re- 
garded by some writers as an almost infallible remedy 
against the propensity to suicide. Esquirol, in his treatise 
on insanity, alludes to an account, published by Leroy d'An- 
vers, of the benefit of cold water as a preventive of suicide, 
and asserts that many facts would seem to favor the employ- 
ment of such remedy. He cites the case of a highly distin- 
guished Prussian surgeon, by the name of Theden, who, 
having been hypochondriacal in his youth, grew at last mel- 
ancholic, with a strong propensity to the commission of sui- 
cide ; but through the copious use of cold water — from 
twenty-four to thirty pints a day — his health was restored. 
He continued the habit of drinking several pints of cold 
water daily when at the age of eighty years. Hufeland ad- 
duces two cases in support of this remedy. Would not 
then the hydropathic treatment be particularly suited to 
those laboring under a disposition to self-murder? 

Suicide is peculiar to man. We have no evidence that 
any other animal, even under the most painful oircumstances 
of suffering, ever voluntarily shortens its own existence. 
The story of the scorpion stinging itself to death when be- 
girt by fire, is a mere poetic fiction. This unnatural act, 
then, belongs to reason, or I should rather say, the perver- 
sion of reason, never to simple instinct. 



SUICIDE. 311 

Grief becomes modified, and assumes a more or less dan- 
gerous character, according to the particular nature of its 
origin. When caused by the decease of friends and kindred, 
it is, for the most part, sober, solemn, subdued ; and instead 
of provoking, tends rather to soften and quell the sterner 
passions of man. And then as death belongs essentially to 
the scheme of nature, as every human heart is exposed to 
bleed under its bereavements, it is a law of our constitution 
that the wounds it inflicts should daily experience the se- 
dative and healing influence of time. To the loss even of 
the best beloved, the feelings will ultimately get resigned, 
and the idea of the departed, divested of all the acuteness 
of its original pain, comes at last to be dwelt upon with that 
species of soothing melancholy which would scarce be ex- 
changed even for the gayest social pleasures. What a hap- 
py serenity will often steal over the feelings, when, with- 
drawing from the busy cares and unsatisfying enjoyments 
of the world, we yield ourselves to the fond remembrance of 
those friends and kindred who rest before us from the toils 
and sorrows of life ! And with what gladness will the 
mourner, his grief sobered by time's tempering power, often 
quit the noisy scenes of mirth and pleasure, to linger in 
silence and solitude at that consecrated spot where rests the 
object of his dearest recollections ! But again, other afflic- 
tions, as disappointed ambition, ruined fortune, blighted 
reputation, are apt to awaken moral sufferings of a far less 
humble and submissive nature, and to which time less cer^ 
tainly extends its healing balm. Such, too, are much more 
frequently united with the evil passions of anger, envy, 



312 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

jealousy, hatred, and consequently oftener lead to dissipa- 
tion, crime, despair, and suicide. In loss of fortune, for ex- 
ample, especially where successful efforts cannot be made to 
retrieve it, the grief that follows is many times rather ag. 
gravated than appeased by the influence of time and new 
associations. Here the evils are ever present, ever felt. 
The constant deprivations and painful comparisons, the 
dreadful apprehensions for the future, and the agonizing 
sense of wounded pride, or self-humiliation, which there will 
be such repeated occasions to call forth, oftentimes render 
existence an almost unrelieved torture. How few, under 
such reverse of circumstances, can look back on the days of 
their ease and affluenccbut with feelings of the most bitter 
regret ! And what cause than this has been more produc- 
tive of despair and self-destruction ? 

" But most to him shall memory prove a curse, 
Who meets capricious fortune's hard reverse ; 
Who once in wealth, indulged each gay desire, 
While to possess, was only to require : 
Glows not a flower, nor pants a vernal breeze, 
As in his hour of affluence and ease, 
While every luxury that the world displays, 
Wounds him afresh, and tells of better days."* 

vcrc afflictions will oftentimes be better supported 
than the minor ills, or lighter trials of existence. Great 
misfortunes seem often to strengthen, elevate and purify 

* Merry's Pains of Memory. 



SUICIDE. 313 

the soul, and are borne with manly composure, and heroic 
resignation ; while lesser evils render us impatient and 
irritable, and exercise an unhappy influence on the moral 
character. 

In youth grief generally assumes an acute and transient 
character ; while in age it becomes more chronic and 
lasting. In early life we are buoyed up and sustained, and 
our sorrows all assuaged and shortened by the gay hopes 
that play upon the landscape of the future. But the mind 
of the aged lives almost entirely upon the recollections of 
the past ; anticipation, with its fond promises, its bright 
coloring, and all its unreal mockeries, can no longer console 
and sustain it. 



14 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

GRIEF CONCLUDED. MENTAL DEJECTION AND EVEN DESPAIR 

MAY BE EXCITED BY MORBID STATES OF OUR BODILY ORGANS. 
DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS, AND EVEN THE SAME AT DIF- 
FERENT TIMES, OWING TO INCIDENTAL CIRCUMSTANCES, 
SHOW DIFFEE.ENT DEGREES OF SUSCEPTIBILITY TO THE 

IMPRESSION BOTH OF MORAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSES. 

IMPORTANCE OF A CHEERFUL AND HAPPY TEMPER TO THE 

HEALTH OF CHILDHOOD. GRIEF IS APPOINTED TO ALL. 

LIFE IS APT TO BE REGARDED AS HAPPY OR UNHAPPY 
ACCORDING TO THE FOE.TUNE WHICH MARKS ITS CLOSE. 

Mental depression, as lias been previously asserted, may 
grow out of physical as well as moral causes. The intimate 
relation between good spirits and good health can hardly 
have escaped even the most common observation. There 
are circumstances of the body under which the brightest 
fortune can bestow no happiness : — where, in the midst of 
every outward comfort, the heart is still heavy; and, discon- 
tented with ourselves, tired of existence, disgusted with all 
about us, we can find neither joy in the present, nor hope in 
the future. 

Mental depression, or sadness, was by the ancients 



GRIEF. 315 

ascribed to a redundancy of that humor of the body de- 
nominated by them black bile, and for which the spleen, in 
their fancy, served as the special reservoir. Hence have we 
the origin of the term melancholia, or melancholy, it being 
constructed of the two Greek words, /*eXa?, melas. meaning 
black, and x°^V-> cholee, bile. And it will also appear how 
the word spleen came to be used as expressive of gloomy or 
unhappy states of the temper. In persons of the melan- 
cholic temperament, a distinctive mark of which is a dark 
sallow complexion, this black bile was imagined to exist in 
excess over the three other humors formerly assigned to the 
body. However erroneous, now, may be these theories, yet 
none the less true are the facts which they were contrived 
to explain. Although the hypotheses of the ancients were 
apt to be visionary, yet shall we generally find their obser- 
vations to be well grounded. That the condition of the 
biliary secretion exercises a material influence upon the 
mind's tranquillity ; that unhealthy, redundant, or obstruct- 
ed bile, at the same time that it gives its gloomy tint to the 
complexion, may color the moral feelings with an equally 
dismal shade, will, in our present state of knowledge, hardly 
be contested. Thus, the common expression, u to look with 
a jaundiced eye," means, as every one must know, to view 
things in their sombrous aspect. We readily conclude, 
then, that disordered or diseased states of the liver may be 
comprehended among the physical causes of despondency of 
the mind. Thus — as will be learnt from what has been 
previously said — do they engender the same character of 
feelings of which they themselves are also begotten. 



316 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Certain morbid, though un explainable conditions of the 
nervous system, as well as of other parts of the animal con- 
stitution, may in like manner cloud our moral atmosphere 
in the deepest gloom. That distressing state of mind 
termed, in medical language, melancholia, in most cases 
certainly, originates in, or at any rate is soon followed by a 
derangement of some part or parts of the vital organization. 
In not a few instances we are able to trace it to its primary 
source in the body. The dreadful sufferings of the poet 
Cowper, at times amounting to actual despair, from this 
terrible physico-moral malady, as it has been not unaptly 
designated, are familiar to most readers. In early life he 
became the subject of religious melancholy, believing him- 
self guilty of " the unpardonable sin," and consequently that 
eternal punishment hereafter was his inevitable doom. So 
poignant, indeed, was his mental agony, that at one time 
he indulged serious thoughts of committing suicide. His 
melancholy, with occasional remissions, and sometimes 
aggravated into the most acute form of monomania, pur- 
sued him through the whole of his wretched existence. 

Cowper appears to have exhibited from his infancy a 
sickly and sensitive constitution, and his native bodily in- 
firmities and morbid predispositions were doubtless also 
favored by too close mental application, as well as by other 
circumstances to which he was exposed in early life. It is 
besides obvious that he must have labored more or less con- 
stantly under an unhealthy condition of the digestive organs, 
his fits of melancholy being generally associated with head- 
ache and giddiness. Who that has ever been afflicted with 



GRIEF . 317 

dyspepsy but will be able to sympathize with him where, 
in one of his letters to Lady Haley, he says, " I rise in the 
morning like an infernal frog out of Acheron, covered with 
the ooze and mud of melancholy." Judicious medical and 
moral treatment united, might doubtless have done much 
in mitigation of the deep sufferings of this distinguished 
individual. 

A morbid or unnaturally irritable state of the inner or 
mucous coat of the stomach, will oftentimes transmit such an 
influence to the mind as to deaden all its susceptibilities of 
enjoyment, and oppress it with the heaviness of despond- 
ency. Now, such an unhealthy character of this inner sur- 
face of the stomach being one of the necessary results of 
an habitual indulgence in exciting and inebriating drinks, 
the danger of a recourse to it, with a view to elevate the 
dejected spirits, or drown the remembrance of sorrow, will 
easily be understood. If the mental depression arises from 
a physical cause, such injudicious stimulation will be sure 
to augment it, and if from a moral, a physical one will 
thus be speedily added to it. There is, indeed, no moral 
gloom more deep and oppressive than that suffered by the 
habitually intemperate — whether in the use of distilled spir- 
its, wine, or opium — in the intervals of their artificial ex- 
citement. In delirium tremens, a disease peculiar to the 
intemperate, the mind is always, even in its lightest forms, 
filled with the most dismal ideas, and a propensity to sui- 
cide is by no means unusual. The opium-eater, too, when 
not under his customary stimulus, generally experiences 
the most terrible mental sufferings. 



318 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

There are certain affections of the brain which manifest 
themselves especially, and at first almost entirely, by an op- 
pressive moral gloom. A number of years since I attended 
a lady with a fatal complaint of this organ, which displayed 
itself chiefly in such manner, the physical suffering to which 
it gave rise being apparently of but little moment. At 
first, and long before any disease was apprehended, she be- 
came exceedingly dejected, secluding herself as far as possi- 
ble from all intercourse with society, and even from the 
presence of her most intimate friends. Her melancholy in- 
creasing, assumed at length a religious cast, and the idea 
that she had forfeited the favor of the Almighty, and was 
therefore doomed to eternal punishment, so tormented her 
imagination, that at one time she made an attempt at self- 
destruction. What was quite surprising, her mind was all 
the while apparently rational ; she conversed freely of her 
feelings, admitted the absurdity of her thoughts, but at the 
same time declared that in spite of every endeavor they 
would intrude themselves upon her. At length she died, 
when, deep in her brain, attached to that part of it which, 
in anatomical language, is called plexus choroides, a cluster 
of vesicles, about thirty in number, and nearly the size of 
peas, was discovered. Such was the physical cause of all 
her poignant mental distress. 

Low, marshy, malarious situations, where intermittent 
fevers, or agues, as they are more familiarly named, abound, 
through some poisonous influence which they generate, so 
act on the physical constitution as to weigh down all the 
moral energies, and fill the mind with the darkest gloom. 



GRIEF. 319 

In observing the inhabitants of such unhealthy spots, even 
when they have become so seasoned to their infection as to 
resist the fevers, or acute effects which it produces in 
strangers, we cannot fail to ■ be struck with their sallow, 
sickly, and emaciated appearance, and the deep melan- 
choly of their countenances, a melancholy which the 
cheerful smile of more wholesome airs is rarely seen to re- 
lax. The nervous system, the liver, and other organs en- 
gaged in the function of digestion, almost always, in such 
situations, labor under more or less obvious derangement. 
And here we have yet another illustration of the remark 
which I have before made, namely, that the like physical 
states which are generated under the operation of grief, will 
also, when arising from other causes, tend to awaken this 
painful passion. Thus, the same spare, nervous, and bil- 
ious condition that distinguishes the gloomy inhabitants of 
the unhealthy sites to which I have just referred, is equally 
witnessed in those who have long suffered under severe 
mental afflictions. 

In passing those infectious spots so common in the 
South of Europe, the attention is particularly attracted 
to the sallow and melancholy aspect of the people. We re- 
mark it as we journey over the celebrated campagna on our 
way to Rome. And in a still more striking manner in the 
Pontine marshes, so long famed for their noxious influence, 
on our route from Rome to Naples. In Paestum, too, and 
all along the rich and fertile shores of Sicily, where the 
balmy airs, the placid waters, the brilliant skies, and the 
teeming soil would seem to invite man to joy and plenty, 



320 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

every thing is shrouded in the deepest moral gloom, and the 
occasional forlorn inhabitant, with his dark, sickly, and de- 
sponding countenance, reminds one of some unblest spirit 
who has wandered into the favored fields of Elysium. Here 
may it truly be said, 

" Black Melancholy sits, and round her throws 
A death-like silence, and a dread repose : 
Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene, 
Shades every flower, and darkens every green." 

The insect that sports about the gaudy flowers, and regales 
itself on their inviting sweets, affords almost the only indi- 
cation of joy in these devoted seats of malaria. 

It has been suggested that Cowper's melancholy was 
probably favored by his long residence in the malarious at- 
mosphere of Olney. 

Frequent attacks of ague, probably by inflicting an injury 
on some one or more of the viscera of the abdomen, are very 
apt to leave the mind a prey to imaginary sorrows, imbit- 
tering the present, clouding the future, and at times leading 
even to despair and all its terrible consequences. Dr. John- 
son tells us that he has known hundreds of people who had 
suffered under agues, or who had been exposed to malaria 
in hot and unhealthy climates, and who were harassed for 
years afterwards by all manner of horrors and sufferings. 
'•' I know many," says he, " who arc affected with a periodical 
propensity to suicide, which generally comes on during the 
second digestion of food, and goes off when the process is 



GRIEF. 321 

completed. Several instances have come within my know- 
ledge, where individuals have been so well aware of the peri- 
odical propensity to self-murder, that they always took pre- 
cautions against the means of accomplishing that horrid act, 
some hours before the well-known hour of its accession."* 

The well-known influence, especially in sensitive indi- 
viduals, of different conditions of the atmosphere on the 
temper of the mind, must be produced through the medium 
of the physical organization. There are some persons who 
almost uniformly feel dejected when the air is damp and 
thick, t the alacrity of their spirits returning on its becoming 
dry and clear. Both ancient and modern physicians have 
dwelt on the remarkable effect exercised by the state of the 
atmosphere on our moral and intellectual feelings, and facul- 
ties. A dry and temperate climate, with a pure and clear 
air, is peculiarly adapted to those of a melancholy turn of 
mind. 

The reader will now, it is to be presumed, have no diffi- 
culty in understanding that the like moral causes may, in 
different individuals, and even in the same at different times, 
call forth very unlike degrees of moral suffering. In those 
of a naturally sensitive temperament, or whose nervous sus- 
ceptibility has been morbidly elevated through bodily infir- 
mities, a trifling mischance may be felt as keenly as a really 
serious affliction in such as enjoy firmer nerves and sounder 
health. In one afflicted with what we call weak nerves, 
almost every thing that is in the least displeasing irritates 

* On Change of Air. 
14* 



322 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

and vexes the mind, and a life of unhappiness is the not un- 
common consequence of such physical imperfection. The 
coloring of external things depends far more on the charac- 
ter of the internal constitution, than has hitherto been gen- 
erally suspected in man's philosophy ; and truly, therefore, 
has it been said, that '-' the good or the bad events which for- 
tune brings upon us, are felt according to the qualities that 
we not they possess." We are the creatures of constitution 
as well as of circumstance, and with respect to our happi- 
ness, it may be said to depend even more upon the former 
than the latter. There are some who seem to be destined 
through their faulty organization, no matter what may be 
their fortune in regard to external goods, to be miserable ; 
while others, on the contrary, are so physically constituted 
that they can scarce be otherwise than happy. 

Similar observations will also apply to our physical sen- 
sations, their degree being no certain and constant measure 
of the absolute importance of the cause producing them. 
Indeed, as has been before remarked, keen moral and keen 
bodily sensibilities generally go together. He who feels 
keenly mentally, will be likely to have correspondent^ acute 
physical feelings. Now to the person concerned, of what 
moment is it whether a moral or corporeal source of pain be 
augmented, or only his susceptibility to its effect? As dif- 
ferent material bodies, either from their peculiar nature, or 
through the help of incidental causes, are more or less com- 
bustible, BO also are different human beings more or less 
excitable. And with as much reason, therefore, might we 
wonder that one substance should be kindled into a flame 



GRIEF. 323 

by a little spark that causes no impression on the next, as 
that one man should suffer and complain under an influence 
to which another appears wholly indifferent. As there are 
ears so nicely strung as to hear sounds of such exquisite 
acuteness as to be wholly inaudible to others, so are there 
minds tuned so delicately as to perceive and feel what in 
others would raise no sensation, call forth no response. It 
is recorded of the ancient Roman ladies, that they were so 
exquisitely sensitive in their nervous systems, that even the 
odor of flowers would cause them to faint ; and the same is 
said to be equally true of many of the modern ones ; so that 
to 

" Die of a rose in aromatic pain," 

may have some mingling of truth with its poetry. Some 
women are said to possess such exceedingly nice susceptibili- 
ties, that fainting will be produced by the mere touch of 
certain substances, as a peach, velvet, satin, &c. "We are too 
prone, all of us, to assume our own sensibilities as a stand- 
ard for those of the rest of mankind ; hence is it that we 
so often hear expressions like the following, meant for con- 
solation : " Why, how is it possible you can let such a little 
thing trouble you 1 I am sure I shouldn't mind it." As 
well might the blind man say to him that had vision, Why 
do you let such objects of sight disturb you? I am not 
affected by them. Some persons are so phlegmatic, have 
such thick skins, and leaden nerves, that scarce any thing 
will arouse their feelings ; and in these, what we dignify 



324 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

with the name of firmness, is in reality but the result of dul- 
ness or insensibility. 

In connection with this comprehensive passion of grief, 
let me briefly urge the high importance of preserving in 
children a cheerful and happy state of temper, by indulg- 
ing them in the various pleasures and diversions suited to 
their years. Those who are themselves, either from age or 
temperament, grave or sober, will not unfrequently attempt 
to cultivate a similar disposition in children. Such, how- 
ever, is in manifest violation of the laws of the youthful 
constitution. Each period of life has its distinctive charac- 
ter and enjoyments ; and gravity and sedateness, which fond 
parents commonly call manliness, appear to me quite as in- 
consistent and unbecoming in the character of childhood as 
puerile levity in that of age. 

The young, if unwisely restrained in their appropriate 
amusements, or too much confined to the society of what 
are termed serious people, may experience in consequence 
such a dejection of spirits as to occasion a sensible injury to 
their health. And it should furthermore be considered, that 
the sports and gayeties of happy childhood call forth those 
various muscular actions, as laughing, shouting, running, 
jumping, &c, which are, in early life, so absolutely essen- 
tial to the healthful development of the different bodily 
organs. 

Again, children when exposed to neglect and unkind 
treatment, for to such they are far more sensible than we 
are prone to suspect, will not unusually grow sad and spirit- 
less, their stomach, bowels, and nervous system becoming: 



GRIEF. 325 

enfeebled and deranged, and various other painful infirmi- 
ties, and even premature decay, may sometimes owe their 
origin to such unhappy source. 

Childhood, moreover — for what age is exempt from 
them ? — will often have its secret troubles, preying on the 
spirits and undermining the health. The sorrows of this pe- 
riod are, to be sure, but transient in comparison with those of 
later life, yet they may be the occasion of no little suffering and 
injury to the tender and immature system while they do last. 
And then again many of the baleful passions, as envy and 
jealousy, in which grief is always more or less mingled, may 
agitate the human bosom long before they can be exhibited 
in language. Disappointed ambition, too, may wound the 
breast and disturb the health even in our earliest years. 

Children, varying as they are known to do in their tem- 
peraments, will be affected in unequal degrees by the moral 
influences to which I have referred. When delicate and 
possessed of high nervous sensibility they will feel them 
far more keenly, and the danger from them will be corre- 
spondency enhanced. 

Grief, let me add in conclusion of this subject, is a pas- 
sion from which every human heart is destined to suffer. 
Affliction, in the continually recurrent vicissitudes of life, 
must fall upon us all ; no one can hope to shun it, though 
the fates measure it out in very different quantities to dif- 
ferent individuals, and to some so abundantly, that, like 
the Thracians, they might well weep at the birth of a 
child and rejoice at the funeral of their friends. Life is 
generally regarded as happy or unhappy according to the 



326 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

fortune which marks its close. We are apt to repine 
against fate if adversity overtakes us near the end, how- 
ever great may have been the prosperity of our preceding 
years. Solon, the famous lawgiver, and one of the seven 
wise men of Greece, counted no man happy till the manner 
of his death was known. " Futurity carries for every man 
many various and uncertain events in its bosom. He, there- 
fore, whom Heaven blesses with success to the last, is in our 
estimation the happy man. But the happiness of him who 
still lives, and has the dangers of life to encounter, appears 
to us no better than that of a champion before the combat 
is determined, and while the crown is uncertain."* But 
could we justly complain of a repast where all the dishes 
were good and plentiful except one or two at the end ? Or, 
on the other hand, praise it if all were poor and scanty but 
a few of the last? The closing scenes of Sir W alter Scott's 
career were indeed melancholy ; nevertheless, his feast of 
life, as a whole, was far richer and more abundant than is 
allotted to most men. 

* Plutarch. Life of Solon. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ENVY AND JEALOUSY. SIMILAR IN THEIR NATURE. SECRET 

AND' DANGEROUS IN THEIR OPERATION. MANIFEST THEM- 
SELVES EVEN IN INFANCY. — INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF THESE 

PASSIONS UPON HEALTH. SHAME. ITS NATURE. THE 

PHENOMENA WHICH ATTEND IT. WHEN EXTREME MAY BE 

FRAUGHT WITH DANGER TO HEALTH AND EVEN LIFE. A 

FREQUENT SOURCE OF SUFFERING AND DISEASE IN A STATE 
OF SOCIETY. 

Envy and jealousy are closely allied in their nature, and 
are oftentimes used indiscriminately for the same men- 
tal feeling. The only distinction between these two con- 
temptible passions, is, that jealousy is felt toward a compe- 
titor who is, or we apprehend is, rising to our own rank or 
condition, and likely therefore to interfere either with our 
present or anticipated fortunes and enjoyments ; whereas 
envy is directed toward those who already, as we conceive, 
enjoy something more and better, as respects internal or 
external gifts, than belongs to ourselves. They are each, 
however, attended by corresponding effects, and as is true of 
all malignant feelings, become equally the authors of their 



328 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

own punishment, physical as well as moral. They are both 
secret and degrading passions, and when long and deeply 
indulged wear equally upon soul and body — prey like a 
hidden canker on the inmost sources of health and happi- 
ness. We may writhe and madden under, but dare not 
acknowledge the sting they infix in our bosom. " Saw of 
the soul" was fitly applied by an ancient writer to the 
wasting feeling of envy. 

The manifestations of envy and jealousy, are witnessed 
even in infancy. " Envy," it has been said, " exerts its 
baneful effects on us even from our cradle. Children are 
observed to look sickly, and los,e their flesh, if they see 
other children more indulged than themselves." " I have 
seen," says a French writer, " a jealous child, who was not 
yet able to speak a word, but who regarded another child 
who sucked with him, with a dejected countenance and an 
irritated eye." Esquirol observes that jealousy sometimes 
destroys all the delights of early life, and causes a true 
melancholy with delirium ; and that some children, jealous 
of the fondness and caresses of their mother, grow pale, 
emaciate, and die.* In children who are educated together, 
this feeling of jealousy will be constantly appearing, how- 
ever anxiously they may strive to dissemble it. An indis- 
creet partiality on the part of parents or teachers is es- 
pecrally apt to awaken it, and may thus produce the most 
unhappy effects both on the mind and body of youth. 

Dr. Zimmermann observes that there arc many persons 

* Treatise on Insanity. 



SHAME, 329 

in the world who really owe their diseases to the passion of 
envy, and which diseases are the more dangerous, from their 
cause being very often unknown. " The silent, melancholy air 
we so often see in our patients, and the uneasiness and distress 
that do so much harm in diseases, very often arise from no 
other cause than a secret envy, which preys upon the heart, 
and disturbs all the operations both of the mind and body."* 

There is another form of jealousy beside that noticed, I 
mean sexual jealousy ; which, for the reason that it is often 
blended with the pleasurable emotion of love, I shall class 
under the mixed passions. 

Shame consists in wounded pride or self-love, and pre- 
sents itself in every degree, from that which passes away 
with the transient blush it raises on the cheek, to the pain- 
ful mortification of spirit, to the deep and terrible sense of 
humiliation which prostrates all the energies of mind and 
body, and renders life odious. Such extremes of mortified 
pride, it is true, are not ordinarily included under the pre- 
sent passion, still if we carefully consider them, they will be 
found to be legitimately reducible to it. 

Shame, in its primary and most commonly observed op- 
eration, affects, in a striking manner, the circulation of the 
extreme, or capillary vessels of the head and neck. Thus, 
in many persons, no sooner is it felt than the blood flies to 
the face, and not unusually to the neck and ears, suffusing 
them with a crimson and burning blush. The eyes, too, 
will oftentimes participate in it, and the vision in conse- 

* On Experience in Physic. 



330 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

quence, become partially and transiently obscured. This 
sudden flow of blood towards the parts mentioned, is not, as 
might at first seem, owing to any increase of the heart's 
action, but, in all ordinary cases, at least, is referrible to the 
immediate influence of the passion on this particular por- 
tion of the capillary circulation. Many of the other pas- 
sions are also known to produce analogous local effects in 
the circulatory function. 

Blushing takes place with remarkable facility in the 
young and sensitive, and in all persons of fair and delicate 
complexions, as in those of the sanguine temperament ; and 
still more so if the nervous be ingrafted upon it, forming 
that compound temperament which has received the name 
of sanguineo-nervous. Here blushing will be constantly 
occurring, and on the most trivial occasions. 

In certain disordered states of the system, owing proba- 
bly to a morbid exaltation of the nervous sensibility, blush- 
ing happens far more readily than in sound health. In in- 
digestion, for example, the face, under every little emotion, 
is liable to become flushed and heated. 

Shame, when strongly excited, is productive of very 
striking phenomena, both in the mind and body. Under its 
sudden and aggravated influence, the memory fails, the 
thoughts grow confused, the sight becomes clouded, the 
tongue trips in its utterance, and the muscular motions arc 
constrained and unnatural. Consider, for illustration, a 
bashful man making Ms entrance into an evening assembly. 
Every thing there appears to him in a maze. The lights 
dance and grow dim in his uncertain and suffused vision. 



SHAME. 331 

He perceives about him numerous individuals, but all seem 
mingled into one moving and indiscriminate mass. He 
bears voices, but they are indistinguishable, and convey no 
definite impressions to the mind. His face burns, his heart 
palpitates and flutters, and, his voluntary muscles but im- 
perfectly obeying the will, he totters forward in the most 
painfully awkward manner, feeling as though all eyes were 
upon him, until reaching that transitorily important, and to 
him fearful personage, the mistress of the ceremony. He 
now bows like an automaton, or as if some sudden spasm 
had seized upon his muscles, and either says nothing — 
shame fixing his tongue, and sealing his lips — or if he 
makes out to speak, his voice is tremulous and agitated, and 
scarce knowing what he says, he stammers forth some most 
inapposite remark, just such, perhaps, as he should not have 
made,* and then, overwhelmed with confusion, staggers 
away, stumbling, perchance, over a chair or table, or running 
against some of the company, and is only relieved of his 
embarrassment on finding himself mixed with the promis- 
cuous crowd. Now, the moral pain experienced under the 
circumstances described, is oftentimes of the most intense 
nature, and the abashed individual would be glad to trans- 
port himself to almost any other situation, and might prefer 
rather to face the cannon's mouth, than endure a repeti- 
tion of such a distressing scene. Here, however, the pas- 



* I remember a very sensible and well educated gentleman, wbo, at 
a wedding party, on paying his respects to the bride said, " I wish you 
many happy returns of this evening." 



332 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

sion is, in most cases, but temporary in its operation, passing 
off with the occasion that excited it. But sometimes the 
individual continues to suffer under the effects of wounded 
self-love ; remains nervous, agitated, unsocial and depressed 
through the evening ; has no relish for the refreshments 
before him, and even a disturbed and sleepless night may 
follow. Such severe effects are more particularly apt to 
ensue in those whose nervous sensibility is in excess, or in 
the subjects of what we denominate the nervous tempera- 
ment. 

We witness, in a very obvious manner, the operation of 
the passion I am noticing, in the intercourse between 
the young of the opposite sexes, some of whom, especially 
such as have been educated in a retired manner, can hardly 
look at, or speak to one another without blushing the deep- 
est scarlet. May not this sudden rush of blood toward the 
head also affect the brain, and thus aid in producing that 
confusion of thought so remarkable in those under the pre- 
sent emotion? 

Shame, when habitually manifesting itself in the com- 
mon intercourse with society, as we see it particularly in 
the young, is denominated bashfulness, which occasions to 
many persons, even through life, no trifling amount of in- 
convenience and suffering. There are those who can never 
encounter the eye of another without becoming sensibly 
confused. For the most part, however, this infirmity readily 
wears off under frequent commerce with the world, and as 
one extreme often follows another, the most bashful will not 
rarely come to be the most bold-faced and shameless. 



SHAME. 333 

Bashfulness and modesty, although so frequently con- 
founded, have yet no necessary connection or relationship, 
and either may exist without the presence of the other. 
The former, or shamefacedness, as it is often called, is a 
weakness not unfrequently belonging to the physical consti- 
tution, and of which every one would* gladly be relieved. It 
may be a quality of those even who are most impure in their 
feelings, and, when unrestrained, most immodest in their 
conversation. Modesty, on the other hand, pertains espe- 
cially to the mind, is the subject of education, and the 
brightest, indeed it may almost be said, the rarest gem that 
adorns the human character. That awkward diffidence so 
frequently met with in the young of both sexes, is of a na- 
ture often very little akin to modesty. 

Shame, in its ordinary operation, is not a frequent 
source of ill health. It is generally too transient in its 
workings seriously to disturb the bodily functions. Under 
its severe action, however, headaches, indigestions, and 
nervous agitations are not of rare occurrence, and even 
insanity has sometimes followed its aggravated influence. 
Injured self-love, as is proved by the reports of various 
lunatic asylums, is by no means an unusual cause of mental 
alienation. A case is related on the authority of Baron 
Haller, where deep shame brought on a violent fever, fol- 
lowed by death, in a young female. " It is related," says 
Dr. Zimmermann, "of Diodorus Chronos, who was con- 
sidered as the most subtile logician of the time of Ptolemy 
Soter, that Stilpo one day in the presence of the king pro- 
posed a question to him, to which he was unable to reply ; 



334 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

the king willing to cover him with shame, pronounced only 
one part of his name and called him ovos, ass, instead of 
Chronos. Diodorus was so much affected at this as to die 
soon afterwards." Others have told the story a little differ- 
ently, yet it appears from all authorities that he died of 
shame from not being able to answer a puzzling question 
put to him by the philosopher Stilpo. So painful is this 
passion in its extreme degree, that to escape it, the guilty 
mother is sometimes driven on, in opposition to the strong- 
est instinct of her nature, to the murder of her own 
offspring. 

Sensitive young children more often suffer under this 
passion of shame than has generally been considered. 
When strongly impressed by it, they are apt to grow dull, 
gloomy, sad ; to lose their appetite, and become disordered 
in their digestive organs. The effect on the appetite is, in 
a particular manner, sudden and remarkable, so that any 
child whose feelings are at all quick and delicate may easily 
be shamed out of his dinner. To any family disgrace they 
become early and keenly sensible, and their sufferings from 
such source are more deep and painful than we are prone to 
suspect ; and especially when — as is most usually the case 
— it is made the occasion of reproach and derision to them 
by their companions. 

The cruel practice of ridiculing the young, making them 
the subject of contemptuous merriment, and more particu- 
larly of reproaching theiu with, or mocking their bodily 
imperfections, cannot be too severely censured, not only as 
deeply wounding their moral sensibilities, but as serving, 



SHAME. 335 

also, by an unavoidable consequence, to injure their physical 
health. It is generally known that Lord Byron, even in his 
earliest years, was most painfully sensitive to his lameness, 
and we are told that, — ; ' One of the most striking passages 
in some memoranda which he has left of his early days, is 
where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject 
of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and 
humiliation that came over him when his mother, in one of 
her fits of passion, called him a ' lame brat.' " Such an 
expression will be acknowledged by all to have been unfeel- 
ing and injudicious in the extreme ; and yet how common 
is it to hear parents upbraiding their children with those 
infirmities of which they may be the unfortunate subjects, 
thus awakening in their breasts the most poignant, and 
oftentimes injurious sense of mortification, and causing 
them to feel their unavoidable physical defects with all the 
shame and vexation of some inflicted ignominy. 

Some persons would seem to be naturally very suscepti- 
ble to the passion under notice ; even the slightest causes 
are sufficient to provoke it, and in such it becomes a frequent 
source of suffering alike to mind and body. 

As an agent in the moral discipline of the young, no 
passion than that of shame is more frequently, and I may 
add, perhaps, successfully brought into requisition ; but 
even here it should be resorted to with a good deal of 
prudence, or it may tend to crush, instead of correcting the 
spirit, and thereby to repress the wholesome energies of the 
constitution. A certain measure of self-esteem is a neces- 
sary stimulus equally to our mental and bodily functions. 



336 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

and we should therefore be careful that this sentiment be 
not too much reduced by the counterworking of shame. 

I have met with several instances where a morbid and 
more or less lasting redness of the skin, would often follow 
the passion in view. Thus, under its operation, a deep 
blush would spread itself over the face, extending perhaps 
to the neck, or even down the chest, and instead of passing 
off, as is usual, would remain to a greater or less extent, 
resembling a cutaneous inflammation, sometimes even for 
several days. These examples were witnessed in females of 
a delicate complexion, and mostly of a nervous temperament. 
Different eruptions upon the surface, and particularly those 
to which a predisposition may exist, will at times be pro- 
duced by this same passion. 

The different secretions may become affected through 
the agency of shame, as through that of the other painful 
passions. Dr. Carpenter remarks that the odoriferous 
secretion of the skin, which is much more powerful in 
some individuals than in others, is increased under the 
influence of bashfulness, as well as of certain other of the 
mental emotions.* 

Under an aggravated sense of humiliation the mind 
experiences unutterable anguish, and the body cannot long 
remain unharmed. Insanity, convulsions, and even sudden 
death may be the melancholy result of such painful moral 
condition. What feeling can be imagined more overwhelm- 
ing to the proud and lofty spirit, than that of deeply morti- 

* Human Physiology. 



SHAME. 337 

fied self-love? Under its oppressive influence existence itself 
is felt to be a cruel burden. How many face death in the 
battle-field to save themselves from the shame of cowardice, 
or hazard their lives, in single encounter to shun the like 
reproach, or to wipe, as they believe, some humiliating stain 
from their honor ! 

In a state of society, where mankind are necessarily 
exposed to so many, and oftentimes severe mortifications, 
and subject to such frequent and painful vicissitudes of 
fortune, the suffering and disease emanating from wounded 
pride can scarce be adequately estimated. 



15 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

MIXED PASSIONS DEFINED. SEXUAL JEALOUSY. ITS MORBID 

EFFECTS UPON MIND AND BODY. BEARS A DIRECT PRO- 
PORTION TO THE STRENGTH OF THE LOVE ON WHICH IT 

IS BASED. AVARICE. THE PLEASURABLE AND PAINFUL 

FEELINGS BELONGING TO IT. EFFECTS ON THE PHYSICAL 

SYSTEM. INCREASES WITH AGE. 

If we regard man in the spirit of unbiassed philosophy, we 
shall find little of unmingled good either in his moral or 
physical nature. Evil, in our limited view, would seem to 
be absolutely provided for in his constitution. In the very 
springs of his enjoyment, health, and life, flow also the 
elements of suffering, disease, and dissolution. Consider 
our appetites, the source of so much of human happi- 
ness, and so indispensable to our preservation both as 
individuals and a species, and what a fearful sum of 
sorrow, sickness, and death, shall we not find traceable to 
them'? Look at the law of inflammation! How curious 
and wonderful appear the processes instituted by it for the 
restoration of injuries, and how essentially requisite do we 
find it to the safety and integrity of the vital fabric ! And 
yet out of this very law, the wisdom and benevolence of 



MIXED PASSIONS. 339 

whose final purpose have afforded so frequent a theme to 
the medical philosopher, will be found to originate the most 
agonizing and fatal maladies that afflict our race. Indeed, 
nature would seem to employ inflammation as her favorite 
agent in the violent destruction of human life. 

Those passions now, with which we have been hitherto en- 
gaged, although brought under the classes of pleasurable and 
painful, yet seldom, if ever, can we expect to meet perfectly 
pure, or wholly unmingled with each other. Rarely, and 
perhaps I may say never, does it happen to us, under any 
circumstances, to be completely blessed, but the good we 
enjoy must constantly be purchased at the price of some 
evil. 

" Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 
The source of evil one, and one of good : 
From these the cup of mortal man he fills, 
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills ; 

To most he mingles both 

The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 

But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care."* 

Scarcely indeed can even the most prosperous count 
upon a single moment of unsullied felicity. Or, supposing 
a passion to be in the first instance purely pleasurable, yet 
is it sure almost immediately to engender some other of an 
opposite shade, our very joys becoming the parents of our 
sorrows. The elation of hope alternates with the depression 



Iliad. 



340 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

of fear, the delights of love beget the pangs of jealousy, and 
out of even our happiest fortunes there will almost neces- 
sarily grow some apprehension of change. Thus Othello, 
when under the full fruition of all his heart's desiresk, 
exclaims, 

" If it were now to die 
'Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear, 
My soul hath her content so absolute, 
That not another comfort like to this 
Succeeds in unknown fate." 

So, too, may it be said of our painful passions, — seldom 
are they altogether unrelieved by those of a contrary 
nature. Through even the darkest night of the soul some 
gladdening beams may penetrate. Hope, at least, in our 
very worst conditions, seldom entirely forsakes us. Nature 
diverts us with it amid the pains and disappointments of 
life, as the mother soothes her child, under the bitter drug 
or the surgeon's knife, by holding before it some gilded 
trinket. Although each day is betraying its futility, yet 
does its false light continue to allure and cheer us, often 
even to the hour of our dissolution. We read in Eastern 
allegory of a traveller, who in his flight from a dragon that 
he discovered pursuing him, rushed over a fearful precipice; 
but was hindered in his fall by seizing upon a slender twig. 
Sustained by such weak and uncertain support, — the dragon 
glaring upon him from above, the deadly abyss yawning for 
him below, — looking upward he saw some tempting fruit, 
when, forgetful of the impendent dangers, lie plucked and 



MIXED PASSIONS. 341 

devoured it. And is it not oftentimes the same with us in 
life ? With evils and dangers in pursuit, and terrors and 
destruction before, do we not, — held by the equally frail and 
treacherous support of hope, — continue to pluck, and feast 
ourselves with the joys of existence? Divested of the 
principle of hope, it is doubtful if the human race, with its 
present constitution, could possibly have been preserved. 
Even in the severest extremities, it still holds us to 
existence. 

" To be worst, 
The lowest, and most dejected thing of fortune, 
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear." 

It will be understood, then, that particular emotions are 
assigned to the classes pleasurable and painful, not that 
they are absolutely unmingled, but because pain or pleasure 
is their obviously predominant and striking feature. Now 
in this third class, or what we designate as mixed, both the 
happy and unhappy passions are distinctly blended, and 
each, even to the most superficial observation, is rendered 
plainly apparent. 

The deleterious consequences, proceeding from the mixed 
emotions, will, it scarce need be said, have a direct relation 
to the preponderance of the unhappy feelings which enter 
into their constitution. And their operation may, further- 
more, be greatly aggravated by sudden contrasts ; adverse 
passions, when alternating or contending, always serving 
to heighten one another, and thus to produce the most 
agitating and dangerous effects. The fear, anger, and hate, 



342 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

for example, of sexual jealousy, are each enhanced by the 
love with which they alternate, or are so paradoxically 
united. Qf the hazard of awakening in the mind disturbed 
by one strong emotion, another of an opposite character, 
I have before had occasion to speak. "We can perceive, 
therefore, why it is that a knowledge of the very worst 
will generally be better borne than an anxious incertitude, 
under which the feelings are constantly tossed and racked 
by the painful struggles and oppositions of hope and fear. 

"We will proceed now to illustrate the mixed passions 
by a concise account of sexual jealousy, avarice, and am- 
bition. 

Sexual Jealousy, an exceedingly complicated passion, 
is based on the pleasurable emotion of love, and while this 
and hope continue blended in its constitution, it will prop- 
erly come under the present division of mixed passions. 
But when these feelings have become extinguished, and 
despair, wounded self-love, hate, and a burning revenge, 
alone occupy the heart, then will its place be with the 
painful passions. 

Sexual jealousy combining within itself a variety of 
contending emotions, as hope, fear, anger, suspicion, love, 
when extreme, few passions are more agitating and har- 
assing, more blinding to the eye of common sense, more 
perversive of the judgment and moral feelings, or tend to 
more fearful results. Under its unhappy influence the 
appetite fails, the flesh wastes, the complexion grows sallow, 
often tinted with a greenish shade, and the sleep becomes 
broken, disturbed, painful, filled with all sorts of vague and 



SEXUAL JEALOUSY. 343 

dismal imaginings, and, in extravagant cases, is almost 
wholly interrupted. Well, therefore, might Iago exclaim, 
when he had raised in the breast of Othello a doubt of 
Desdemona's faith, 

" Not poppy, nor mandragora, 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou ow'dst yesterday." 

The nervous system also experiences violent perturba- 
tions, and even a state of frenzy sometimes supervenes, 
and life itself is jeoparded. That it becomes a not unfre- 
quent cause of settled insanity, we have abundant evidence 
in the reports of the lunatic asylums of all countries. 
This species of jealousy calls up the most terrible and 
dangerous passions of the heart, and frequently leads to 
the most cruel and unnatural acts. It often turns even 
the gentlest nature into that of a fury, or demon. Let 
every one beware of it. Its breath sheds a deeper, a dead- 
lier venom than that of the fabled dragon of old. If it 
once enters a dwelling, all peace, all joy, flee for ever before 
its baleful presence. 

" O, beware, my lord, of jealousy ; 
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss, 
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger ; 
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er, 
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves ! " 



344 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Other things being the same, sexual jealousy will bear 
a direct proportion to the intensity of the love upon which 
if is based. It is where the latter emotion is deepest, that 
the former becomes most destructive. Hence may it be 
understood why the opposite sexes are so fond of exciting 
the feeling in question, by a thousand little artifices, in the 
breasts of each other, it being a test of their affection, and 
flattering, consequently, to that strongest of all sentiments, 
self-love. 

Avarice is another passion manifestly reducible to the 
class I am now examining. The pleasure of avarice con- 
sists in accumulating and hoarding up treasures ; in com- 
puting and gloating over them ; in a feeling of the power 
which they bestow ; and, likewise, in the consciousness of 
the possession of the means, though there be no disposition 
to employ them for the purposes of enjoyment ; and finally, 
it may be presumed, in the anticipation of future grati- 
fications they are to purchase, since even in the most 
inveterate miser there is probably a sort of vague looking 
forward to the time when his superfluous stores will be 
brought into use, to administer, in some way, to the indul- 
gence of his wants, and the consequent promotion of his 
happiness, although such a period never arrives. 

The painful feelings mingled in avarice, are gloomy 
apprehensions for the safety of its treasures, with uneasy 
forebodings of exaggerated ills which would result from 
their privation. Hence, fear. BUSpicion, and anxiety, serve 
to counterbalance the pleasure arising from the contempla- 
tion and consciousness of possession of the soul's idol. 



AVARICE. 345 

And then, in addition, there is the unhappiness accom- 
panying every little expenditure, even for the common 
wants of life, — the misery, oftentimes truly distressing, of 
parting with even a fraction of that wealth to which the 
soul is so indissolubly bound. 

There are numerous passions of a far more guilty char- 
acter, and whose consequences to the individual and to 
society are vastly more pernicious, but few are there more 
despicable, more debasing, more destructive of every senti- 
ment which refines and elevates our nature, than avarice. 
Nothing noble, nothing honorable can ever associate with 
the sordid slave of this unworthy feeling. It chills and de- 
grades the spirit, freezes every generous affection, breaks 
every social relation, every tie of friendship and kindred, 
and renders the heart as dead to every human sympathy as 
the inanimate mass it worships. Grold is its friend, its mis- 
tress, its god. 

In respect to the physical system, avarice lessens the 
healthful vigor of the heart, and reduces the energy of all 
the important functions of the economy. Under its noxious 
influence, the cheek turns pale, the skin becomes prematurely 
wrinkled, and the whole frame appears to contract, to meet, 
as it were, the littleness of its penurious soul. Nothing, in 
short, is expanded either in mind or body in the covetous 
man, but he seems to be constantly receding from all about 
him, and shrinking within the compass of his own mean and 
narrow spirit. He denies himself not merely the pleasures 
but the ordinary comforts of existence ; turns away from the 
bounties which nature has spread around him, and even 
15* 



346 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

starves himself in the midst of plenty, that he may feast his 
imagination on his useless hoards. The extent to which 
this sordid passion has in some instances reached, would 
appear almost incredible. An old writer tells of a miser, 
who, during a famine, sold a mouse for two hundred pence, 
and starved with the money in his pocket. 

Avarice does not, like most other passions, diminish with 
the advance of life, but, on the contrary, seems disposed to 
acquire more and more strength in proportion as that term 
draws near when wealth can be of no more account than the 
dust to which the withered body is about to return. Old 
age and covetousness have become proverbially associated. 
Not unfrequently, indeed, will this sordid inclination remain 
active even to the end, outliving every other feeling, and 
gold be the last thing that can cheer the languid sight, or 
raise the palsied touch. Thus have we examples of misers 
who have died in the dark to save the cost of a candle. 
Fielding tells us of a miser who comforted himself on his 
death-bed "by making a crafty and advantageous bargain 
concerning his ensuing funeral, with an undertaker who had 
married his only child." I well remember an old man, who 
— having reached the extremity of his existence, and in a 
state of torpor and apathy to all around him — would almost 
always be aroused, and a gleam of interest be lighted up in 
his dim eye, by the jingling of money. 

Even the sudden and most appalling aspect of death will 
not always banish this base sentiment from the heart. 
Thus, in cases of shipwreck, persons have so overloaded 
themselves with gold, as to sink at once under its heavy 



AVARICE. 347 

pressure. In excavating Pompeii, a skeleton was found 
with its bony fingers firmly clutched round a parcel of mo- 
ney. " When,"— says Dr. Brown, speaking of the miser, — - 
" when the relations, or other expectant heirs, gather around 
his couch, not to comfort, nor even to seem to comfort, but 
to await, in decent mimicry of solemn attendance, that mo- 
ment which they rejoice to see approaching, the dying eye 
can still send a jealous glance to the coffer, near which it 
trembles to see, though it scarcely sees, so many human 
forms assembled, and that feeling of jealous agony, which 
follows, and outlasts the obscure vision of floating forms that 
are scarcely remembered, is at once the last misery, and the 
last coDSciousness of life."* 

Although avarice can scarcely be set down as a very 
prolific source of disease, still, the painful feelings mingling 
with it when extravagant, must exercise a more or less mor- 
bid and depressing influence on the energies of life. The 
countenance of the miser is almost uniformly pale and con- 
tracted, his body spare, and his temper prone to be gloomy, 
irritable, and suspicious, — conditions rarely going with a 
perfect and healthful action of the different bodily functions. 
The miser is, moreover, especially as age advances, very apt 
to fall into that diseased and painful state of the mind in 
which the imagination is continually haunted by the dis- 
tressing apprehension of future penury and want. This is 
a variety of monomania, and certainly a strange one, inas- 
much as it almost always happens to those possessed of 

* Philosophy of the Human Mind. 



348 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

means in abundance to secure them against the remotest 
prospect of such danger ; and usually, also, at an advanced 
period of life, when, in the ordinary course of nature, wealth 
must soon become valueless. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

MIXED PASSIONS CONCLUDED. — - AMBITION. GENERAL CONSID- 
ERATION OF IT. ITS NATURE DEFINED. EVILS GROWING 

OUT OF IT WHEN INORDINATE. — ■ THE PECULIAR POLITICAL, 
AS WELL AS OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE AMERICAN 
PEOPLE, CONTRIBUTE GREATLY TO THE GROWTH OF AMBI- 
TION. HEALTH AND HAPPINESS MOST OFTEN FOUND ASSO- 
CIATED WITH THE GOLDEN MEAN. 

Ambition, although we are so constantly admonished of 
its vanity and danger, would seem to acquire new force 
— additional motives being offered to it — with the moral 
and intellectual advancement of society. The moralist 
who writes, and the preacher who declaims, against it, 
could they rightly analyze the motives which actuate them, 
would probably find this passion to be one of the most 
efficient ; — that their endeavors are t)ften stimulated less 
by a desire for the good, than the applause of mankind. 
The busy efforts of philanthropy are oftentimes incited 
mainly by the spur of ambition. Humility even, paradox- 
ical as it may appear, will not unfrequently have its secret 
sources in the same passion ; and religion itself, stretching 



350 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

its ambitious views beyond the present life, aspires to glo- 
rious distinctions in a world of spirits. 

Ambition — such is its tenacity and power — will often 
cling to, and buoy us up under the severest trials, amid 
bodily sufferings of the most aggravated character, quitting 
us only with the last conscious throb of our being. Nerved 
by his desire of glory, the Indian endures without a murmur 
all the most cunningly devised tortures of his enemies ; 
the martyr experiences the same animating influence amid 
the fires which persecution has lighted for him ; and the 
felon on the scaffold, while his confused vision wanders 
over the assembled multitude below him, becomes stimu- 
lated by a hero's pride, and dies with a hero's fortitude. - 

With the evils and sufferings of ambition, both to indi- 
viduals and society, every one must be familiar, for all 
history is little else than a record of its enormities and 
penalties. In its extreme degree it would appear to swal- 
low up, or, at least, to render subservient to itself, all 
other passions of the soul. It vanquishes even the fear 
of death ; and love itself, however ardent, must submit 
to its more potent sway. Nor can it be bounded by the 
narrow limits of our existence, but there is an eager long- 
ing that our names and deeds may still live in the remem- 
brance of posterity, when our forgotten bodies have re- 
turned to the elements whence they sprung. 

" Of all the follies of the world," says Montaigne, " that 
which is most universally received, is the solicitude for 
reputation and glory, which we are fond of to that degree, 
as to abandon riches, peace, life, and health, which are 



AMBITION. 351 

effectual and substantial goods, to pursue this vain phan- 
tom, this mere echo, that has neither body nor hold to be 
taken of it. And of all the unreasonable humors of men, 
it seems that this continues longer, even with philoso- 
phers themselves, than any other, and that they have the 
most ado to disengage themselves from this, as the most 
resty and obstinate of all human follies." * 

We may define ambition to be that anxious aspiration, 
so characteristic of the human species, to rise above our 
respective stations, or to attain to something loftier, and, 
as fancy pictures, better than what we now enjoy. It 
implies, therefore, dissatisfaction with the present, mingled, 
generally, with more or less elating anticipations for the 
future. Strictly speaking, it embraces emulation, or the 
desire which we all feel of a favorable estimation of self, 
when measured with our compeers. Pride and self-love, 
then, enter essentially into its constitution, and the rival- 
ships and competitions which necessarily grow out of it, 
almost always lead to the painful feelings of envy and 
jealousy. 

This passion, consisting, as it does, especially in the 
wish for superiority over our own particular class, or those 
with whom we are brought into more immediate compari- 
son, must operate alike upon all ranks of society. Hence, 
servants pant for distinction above servants, just as kings 
do for pre-eminence over kings. And the tailor who ex- 
cels all others of his craft in fitting a coat to a dandy's 

* Essays. 



352 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

back, may feel his ambition as highly gratified as the 
proud statesman who has equally outstripped all his com- 
petitors. 

" Philosophy." says Doctor Paley, " smiles at the con- 
tempt with which the rich and great speak of the petty 
strifes and competitions of the poor ; not reflecting that 
these strifes and competitions are just as reasonable as 
their own, and the pleasure which success affords, the 
same." * 

The aims of ambition will differ, and its aspects become 
essentially modified, according to the temperament, educa- 
tion, and habits of its individual subjects, and the various 
incidental circumstances under which they may chance to 
exist. Thus, wealth, literary, political, and military fame, 
or even mere brute strength, — in short, almost any thing 
that can distinguish us from the crowd, may, under differ- 
ent influences, become the object of our aspirations. The 
cynics, or dog-philosophers, while they ridiculed those who 
were ambitious of wealth and worldly display, were them- 
selves equally ostentatious of their poverty, — equally proud 
of their filth and raggedness. Hence the remark of So- 
crates to the leader of this sect. — " Antisthenes, I see thy 
vanity through the holes of thy coat." And Diogenes, so 
distinguished among these currish philosophers, was prob- 
ably as much the votary of ambition, while snarling in 
his dirty tub, as Alexander, when directing his mighty 
armies ; and on making his celebrated reply to the friendly 

* Moral Philosophy. 



AMBITION. 353 

inquiry of the latter, who had condescended to visit him, 
"If there was any thing he could serve him in?" "Only 
stand out of my sunshine," felt, it is not unlikely, as much 
pride in his singularity and impudence, as did his illustri- 
ous and more courteous guest, in all the glory of his con- 
quering power. Well, therefore, might the ambitious mon- 
arch exclaim, — " Were I not Alexander, I should wish to be 
Diogenes." And then, again, so much may the bent of 
ambition depend on adventitious circumstances, that he 
who, under some conditions, would pant to excel as a rob- 
ber, might, under others, be full as eager for excellence 
as a saint. 

" The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline, 
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine ; 
The same ambition can destroy or save, 
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave." 

Among the worst evils of inordinate ambition is its contin- 
ual restlessness : its dissatisfaction with the present, and its 
implacable longings for the future. Honors are no sooner 
achieved than their vanity becomes apparent, and they are 
contemned, while those which are not possessed hold out 
the only promise of enjoyment. The ardor of love — and 
the same is true of most other strong passions — will be 
quenched, or at least weakened, by fruition ; but the appe- 
tite of ambition can never be satiated, feeding serves only to 
aggravate its hunger. No sooner, therefore, has the ambitious 
man gained one eminence, than another and yet loftier swells 
upon his view, and with fresh and more eager efforts and de- 



354 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

sires lie strains forward to reach its summit. And so does 
he go on, surmounting height after height, still looking and 
laboring upward, until he has climbed to the utmost pinna- 
cle. But alas ! even here he meets but disappointment and 
unrest. The same ambitious cravings continue to haunt and 
agitate him, and, deprived of the cheering influence of hope, 
and the animating excitement attendant on the struggles of 
pursuit, he is even less content and less happy than on first 
starting in the race. He has been chasing, as he finds, a 
phantom ; been laboring but to labor ; has enjoyed no 
hour of pleasing respite, and has in the end, perhaps, 
found only a hell in the imaginary paradise he had framed 
to himself. Though the rich fruit has ever seemed to wave 
above him, and the refreshing stream to play before him, 
yet has he been doomed to an unceasing and a quenchless 
thirst. 

It is certainly a great pity that we do not strive rather 
for a contented spirit, — to enjoy the good already in posses- 
sion, instead of wasting ourselves in the pursuit of things 
which owe all their beauty to the distance at which they are 
removed from us. 

Cineas, the friend and counsellor of Pyrrhus, king of 
Epirus, with a view to wean the latter from his ambitious de- 
signs on Italy, drew him artfully into the following conver- 
sation : " The Romans have the reputation of being excel- 
lent soldiers, and have the command of many warlike na- 
tions; if it please Heaven that we conquer them, what use, 
sir, shall we make of our victory ?" " Cineas," replied the 
king, "your question answers itself. When the Romans are 



AMBITION. 355 

once subdued, there is no town, whether Greek or Barbarian, 
in all the country, that will dare oppose us ; but we shall im- 
mediately be masters of all Italy, whose greatness, power 
and importance, no man knows better than you." Cineas 
having paused a moment, continued, " But after we have 
conquered Italy, what shall we do next, sir ?" Pyrrhus, not 
yet perceiving his drift, replied, " There is Sicily very near, 
and stretches out her arms to receive us, a fruitful and pop- 
ulous island, and easy to be taken. For Agathocles was 
no sooner gone, than faction and anarchy prevailed among 
her cities, and every thing is kept in confusion by her tur- 
bulent demagogues." "What you say, my prince," return- 
ed Cineas, " is very probable ; but is the taking of Sicily to 
conclude our expeditions?" " Far from it," answered Pyr- 
rhus, " for if Heaven grant us success in this, that success 
shall only be the prelude to greater things. Who can for- 
bear Lybia and Carthage, then within reach, which Aga- 
thocles, even when he fled in a clandestine manner from Sy- 
racuse, and crossed the sea with a few ships only, had almost 
made himself master of? And when we , have made such 
conquests, who can pretend to say that any of our enemies, 
who are now so insolent, will think of resisting us ?" " To 
be sure," said Cineas, "they will not; for it is clear that so 
much power will enable you to recover Macedonia, and to 
establish yourself uncontested sovereign of Greece. But 
when we have conquered all, what are we to do then?" 
" Why, then, my friend," said Pyrrhus, laughing, " we will 
take our ease, and drink and be merry." Cineas, having 
brought him thus far, replied, " And what hinders us from 



356 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

drinking and taking our ease now, when we have already 
those things in our hands, at which we propose to arrive 
through seas of blood, through infinite toils and dangers, 
through innumerable calamities, which we must both cause 
and suffer ?' ;# 

The passion under notice, existing as it does, to a greater 
or less extent, in every human breast, would seem to be a 
necessary element in our moral constitution. Some, even, 
of the inferior animals, exhibit undeniable manifestations of 
its influence. It cannot, therefore, nor is it desirable that it 
should be altogether suppressed. When moderate, and 
wisely regulated, it may prove an agreeable and wholesome 
stimulus alike to the mental and physical economy, and con- 
tribute in various ways both to individual and social good. 

It is when ambition is extravagant, and especially if it 
be at the same time ill-directed, that we witness all its per- 
nicious effects on mind and body. He who has once sur- 
rendered himself to the thraldom of this passion, may bid 
farewell to that contentment and tranquillity of the soul, in 
which exist the purest elements of happiness. The heart 
thus enslaved will be ever agitated by the harassing conten- 
tions of hope and fear, and if success is unequal to the 
wishes and anticipations — and how seldom is it otherwise? 
— then come the noxious feelings of disappointment and 
regret ; humiliation, envy, jealousy, and frequently even 
despair, infusing their poison into all the healthful springs 
of life. The Ballow and anxious brow, the dismal train of 

* Plutarch's Lives. 



AMBITION. 357 

dyspeptic and nervous symptoms, and the numerous affec- 
tions of the heart and brain so often witnessed in the aspi- 
rants for literary, political, or professional fame, proceed 
not rarely from the painful workings of the passion under 
examination. And could we always trace out the secret 
causes of ill health and premature decay, disappointed am- 
bition would probably be discovered to hold a far more pro- 
minent place among them than has hitherto been surmised. 
How few are adequate, either in their moral or physical 
strength, to bear up under the blighting of high-reaching 
expectations, and yet of how many is such the doom ! In 
those, especially, of delicate and susceptive constitutions, the 
powers of life may soon yield to the disheartening influence 
of the painful mortification which is the inevitable con- 
sequence. 

It is a mistake, I conceive, in our education, thatuhe 
principle of ambition is so early and assiduously instilled 
into, and urged upon us as the grand moving power of our 
lives — that great men, not happy ones, are held up as pat- 
terns for our imitationJ In truth, from the first dawning 
of our reasoning powers, there is a continued endeavor to 
nurture within us an aspiring, and consequently discontent- 
ed spirit, and, by a strange contradiction, while the preacher 
and the moralist are constantly admonishing us of the va- 
nity and danger of the pursuits of ambition. 

The ambition, it may here be observed, which aims at 
moral excellence, or whose ends are generous and benevo- 
lent, serving to promote, instead of interfering with the 
success and advancement of others, and meeting, conse- 



358 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

quently, but little opposition or rivalship, will enjoy a pre- 
ponderance of the pleasurable feelings, and will therefore 
be salutary in its effects alike on mind and body. 

Our own peculiar circumstances as a people are espe- 
cially favorable to the growth of ambition. Hardly as yet 
emerged from our infancy, with a widely extended territory, 
and an almost unparalleled national increase, with so much 
to be accomplished, so much in anticipation, every one finds 
some part to act ; every one sees bright visions in the fu- 
ture, and every one therefore becomes inflated with a proud 
sense of his individual importance. T-he field of advance- 
ment, moreover, is alike free to all. our democratical institu- 
tions inviting each citizen, however subordinate may be his 
station, to join in the pursuit of whatever distinctions our 
forms of society can bestow. Hence, as might be expected, 
the demon of unrest, the luckless offspring of ambition, 
haunts us all, agitating our breasts with discontent, and 
racking us with the constant and wearing anxiety of what 
we call bettering our condition. The servant is dissatisfied 
as a servant ; his heart is not in his vocation, but pants for 
some other calling of a less humble sort. And so it is 
through all other ranks — with the mechanic, the trader, the 
professional man — all are equally restless, all are straining 
for elevations beyond what they already enjoy ; and thus do 
we go on toiling anxiously in the chase, still hurrying for- 
ward toward some visionary goal, unmindful of the fruits 
and flowers in our path, until death administers the only 
sure opiate to our peacelcss souls. That the people of every 
country are, in a greater or less measure, the subjects of 



AMBITION. 359 

ambition, and desirous in some way of advancing their for- 
tunes, it is not our purpose to deny ; yet, for the reasons 
stated, the foregoing remarks are particularly applicable 
to ourselves. These same political circumstances, too, which 
so conduce to the increase of ambition, render us extremely 
liable to great and sudden vicissitudes of fortune, which 
are always detrimental both to moral and physical health. 

Mental occupation — some determinate and animating 
object of endeavor, is, as I have previously said, essential to 
the attainment of what we are all seeking — I mean happi- 
ness. Yet if the mind is not allowed its needful intervals 
of relaxation and recreation, — if its objects of desire are 
prosecuted with an unintermitting toil and anxiety, then will 
this great aim of our being assuredly fail us. Now, may it 
not reasonably be doubted if our own citizens, under their 
eager covetings for riches and preferment, under their 
exhausting and almost unrelieved confinement to business, 
do not mistake the true road to happiness 1 Absorbed in 
their ardent struggles for the means, do they not lose sight 
of their important ends ? Asa people we certainly exhibit 
but little of that quiet serenity of temper, which of all 
earthly blessings is the most to be desired. 

When loitering in the streets of Naples I have con- 
templated the half-naked and houseless lazzaroni, basking 
in indolent content in the gay sunshine of their delicious 
climate, or devouring with eager gratification the scant and 
homely fare of uncertain charity, and watched their mirthful 
faces, and heard their merry laugh, and then in fancy have 
contrasted them with our own well-provided citizens, with 



360 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

their hurried step and care-worn countenances, or at their 
plenteous tables, dispatching their meals scarce chewed or 
even tasted — every where haunted by their restless and 
ambitious desires — I could not but ask myself, Are ice 
really any nearer the great purpose of our existence than 
these heedless beggars in their "loop'd and window'd ragged- 
ness?" and when each have attained the final goal, is it 
impossible even that the latter may have actually had the 
advantage in the sum total of human enjoyment? The 
casual pains of cold and hunger which make up their chief 
suffering, will hardly compare with those which continually 
agitate the discontented breast. 

To the force of the same passion, to the uneasy cravings 
of ambition is it that the rash speculations so common 
among us, and so destructive to peace of mind and health 
of body, are in a great measure to be ascribed. This com- 
mercial gambling — for such it may be rightly named — will 
oftentimes be even more widely ruinous in its consequences 
than that more humble sort to which our moral laws affix a 
penalty of so deep disgrace. For while the private gamester 
trusts to the fall of a die. or the turn of a card, but his own 
gold, the gambler on change risks on the hazards of the 
market, not what belongs to himself only, but, many times, 
the fortunes of those who had reposed their confidence in 
his integrity, and may thus involve in one common ruin 
whole circles of kindred and friends. And yet such are 
the ethics of social life, that whilst the latter is respected, 
courted, and elevated to high places, civil and religious, the 
former is shut out of all virtuous society. 



AMBITION. 361 

No truth, perhaps, has been more generally enforced and 
admitted, both by ancient and modern wisdom, while none 
has received less regard in practice, than that happiness is 
equally removed from either extreme of fortune, — that 
health and enjoyment are most frequently found associated 
with the aurea mediocritas, the golden mean. 



16 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE IMAGINATION WHEN NOT PROPERLY DISCIPLINED AND 
RESTRAINED. BECOMES A SOURCE BOTH OF MORAL AND 
PHYSICAL DISORDEK.. CAUSES OF A DISORDERLY IMAGINA- 
TION. EROTIC MELANCHOLY OE. MONOMANIA. HAS ITS 

ORIGIN OFTEN IN AN UNCONTROLLED AND ROMANTIC 
IMAGINATION, AND IS FREQUENTLY EXCITED BY AN UN- 
REASONABLE INDULGENCE IN NOVEL READING. ITS DE- 
SCRIPTION. ITS MOST COMMON SUBJECTS. THE NERVOUS 

TEMPERAMENT. SECURITIES AGAINST A MORBID ASCENDEN- 
CY OF THE IMAGINATION, AND ITS CONSEQUENT NERVOUS 
INFIRMITIES. 

An ill-regulated and unbridled imagination, united, as it 
always is, with strong and varying emotions, must be 
inimical to the health both of body and mind. In respect 
to their consequences, it is of little moment whether the 
passions have their incentive in the creations of fancy, or 
the sterner truths of reality. 

"It was undoubtedly the intention of nature," says 
Professor Stewart, " that the objects of perception should 
produce much stronger impressions on the mind than its 
own operations. And, accordingly, they always do so, when 
proper care has been taken, in early life, to exercise the 



IMAGINATION. 363 

different principles of our constitution. But it is possible, 
by long habits of solitary reflection, to reverse this order of 
things, and to weaken the attention to sensible objects to 
so great a degree, as to leave the conduct almost wholly 
under the influence of imagination. Removed to a distance 
from society, and from the pursuits of life, when we have 
been long accustomed to converse with our own thoughts, 
and have found our activity gratified by intellectual exer- 
tions, which afford scope to all our powers and affections, 
without exposing us to the inconveniences resulting from 
the bustle of the world, we are apt to contract an unnatural 
predilection for meditation, and to lose all interest in ex- 
ternal occurrences. In such a situation, too, the mind 
gradually loses that command which education, when pro- 
perly conducted, gives it over the train of its ideas ; till at 
length the most extravagant dreams of imagination acquire 
as powerful an influence in exciting all its passions, as if 
they were realities."* 

There is a class of individuals always to be met with 
in society, who, unsatisfied with the tameness of real life, 
create for themselves new conditions, and please themselves 
with impossible delights in the worlds of imagination ; who 
riot amid the false hopes and unnatural joys of entrancing 
day-dreams, till at last the unreal acquires absolute domin- 
ion over their minds — till wholesome truth is sacrificed to 
sickly mockeries : . 

" And nothing is, 
But what is not." 

* Philosophy of the Human Mind. 



364 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Such persons are apt to be characterized by a certain 
sentimental melancholy, mingled with a deep and romantic 
enthusiasm ; by morbidly refined sensibilities ; an impas- 
sioned and fervid, though often disorderly imagination ; and 
are not unfrequently distinguished by brilliant mental en- 
dowments, particularly by a genius for poetry, whose license 
is to range at discretion through fancy's boundless and 
enchanting fields. They are prone, also, to become mis- 
anthropical and secluded in their feelings and habits. 

There are few of us, indeed, even of the most sober ima- 
ginations, but must sometimes have experienced the ecstasy 
of revelling among the delights of the unreal ; of forgetting 
our own dull and unsatisfying sphere, and indulging in 
dreams of unearthly felicity — dreams, alas ! which must 
soon be dispelled by some stern reality ; leaving us, like the 
child who has been enrapt by some theatrical fairy show, 
only the more dissatisfied with our actual condition. 

Of Rousseau, who affords a strong example of the un- 
healthy character of the imagination I am describing, and 
of the unhappy nervous infirmities which so constantly go 
with it, Madame de Stael says, " He dreamed rather than 
existed, and the events of his life might be said more pro- 
perly to have passed in his mind than without him." Pic- 
turing his own morbid excess of sensibility, when at Vevay, 
on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, he says, " My heart 
rushed with ardor from my bosom into a thousand innocent 
felicities ; melting to tenderness, I sighed and wept like 
a eliild. How frequently, Btopping to indulge my feelings, 
and seating myself on a piece of broken rock, did I amuse 
myself with seeing my tears drop into the stream !" 



IMAGINATION. 365 

The description which Byron has given of Manfred in 
his youth, was designed to be one of himself, and affords a 
true picture of the imaginative temper of mind with which 
we are engaged : 

" My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, 
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes ; 
The thirst of their ambition was not mine ; 
The aim of their existence was not mine. 
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, 
Made me a stranger. Though I wore the form, 
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh. 
My joy was in the wilderness — to breathe 
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top, 
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing 

Flit o'er the herbless granite ; or 

To follow through the night the moving moon, 
The stars, and their development ; or catch 
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim ; 
Or to look listening on the scatter'd leaves, 
While autumn winds were at their evening song. 
These were my pastimes — and to be alone ; 
For if the beings, of whom I was one — 
Hating to be so — cross'd me in my path, 
I felt myself degraded back to them, 
And was all clay again." 

Sir Walter Scott has given us, in the character of Wil- 
frid, in his poem of Rokeby, a well-drawn picture of this 
same imaginative temperament. 

Such a disposition of the imagination may have its ori- 
gin in a variety of causes ; as native peculiarity of tempera- 



366 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

ment, delicate health, injudicious education, habits of solitary 
reflection, and in the young especially, will oftentimes be 
the fruit of an extravagant indulgence in the works of ficti- 
tious narrative; too many of which abound in that mawkish 
sentimentality, so peculiarly unfriendly to moral and intel- 
lectual health. It appears that Rousseau was, in his youth, 
a great reader of novels. In sensitive and secluded indivi- 
duals, this sort of reading, when carried to excess, has 
sometimes so wrought upon and disturbed the fancy as to 
bring on actual insanity. Esquirol refers the frequency of 
insanity among the women of France, to the vices of their 
education ; as the preference given to mere ornamental 
acquirements, the reading of romances, which incites in the 
mind a precocious activity and premature desires, with the 
imagination of excellences never to be realized — the fre- 
quenting of theatrical exhibitions, and society, and the abuse 
of music. He records a number of cases of insanity which 
were referred to the reading of romances. Erotic melan- 
choly, or monomania, is the form of insanity most usual 
from this cause. The history of the renowned Knight of 
La Mancha is doubtless but an exaggerated picture of 
cases of hallucination, which in those days were frequently 
happening from the general passion for talcs of chivalry and 
romance. u The high-toned and marvellous stories," says 
Dr. Good, "of La Mortc d' Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Ama- 
dis of Gaul, the Seven Champions of Christendom, and the 
Mirror of Knighthood, the splendid and agitating alterna- 
nations of magicians, enchanted castles, dragons and giants, 
redoubtable combatants, imprisoned damsels, melting min- 



IMAGINATION. 367 

strelsy, tilts and tournaments, and all the magnificent 
imagery of the same kind, that so peculiarly distinguished 
the reign of Elizabeth, became a very frequent source of 
permanent hallucination."* 

The chivalrous spirit which followed the crusades great- 
ly multiplied erotic melancholy. But as this form of mental 
aberration is apt to be associated with a disorderly and ro- 
mantic imagination, and to be excited by an unreasonable 
indulgence in novel-reading, a few words of explanation in 
regard to it, will, I trust, not be deemed irrelevant to my 
present subject. Erotic monomania, or erotomania, as some 
writers have termed it, means literally love-madness. It 
is implied in common language by the terms love-crazed, or 
love-cracked. Love may consist in a sort of sentimental 
melancholy, which delights in solitude and soft reveries. 
Such does not reach insanity, although it oftentimes comes 
close upon its confines. Shakspeare, however, classes all 
lovers with lunatics. 

" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact: 
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ; 
That is the madman : the lover, all as frantic, 
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." 

But it is when the passion is so extravagant as to bring 
the judgment quite under its subjection, to absorb all 

* Study of Medicine. 



368 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

other feelings, that it becomes unquestionably a mental 
disease. The assertion is doubtless true, that nearly all 
forms of insanity have their primitive type in some of the 
passions ; and erotic monomania is but the exaggeration 
or extremity of the passion of love. 

Galen asserted love to be the occasion of the worst of 
both physical and moral disorders. The old, the young, 
the learned, the unlearned, the wise, and the foolish, are 
all exposed to its maddening influence. Sappho, for the 
love of Phaon, threw herself from the Leucadian promon- 
tory, so celebrated for lovers' leaps, into the sea. Tasso, 
Abelard and Heloise, Petrarch, and others of countless 
numbers, and of all conditions, have been the subjects, and 
many of them the victims of this monomania. 

This insane love is sometimes felt for beings created by 
the imagination ; and it has even fixed itself upon the beau- 
tiful productions of the sculptor. Alchidas, of Rhodes, be- 
came enamored of the Cupid of Praxiteles ; and we have 
instances in more recent times, where the flame of love has 
been enkindled by the cold marble. Most usually, however, 
this sentiment, in all its shades, is felt for living flesh and 
blood, being either sudden, or of slower growth. 

The subjects of erotic monomania, like other monoma- 
niacs, have their thoughts and affections all centred upon 
a single object, and the more they are opposed, the more 
fixed and obstinate do they become. They arc ready to 
abandon all that is dear in life, as friends, kindred, rank, 
fortune, social propriety, and even character itself, and to 
attempt the most hazardous and difficult acts, under the 



IMAGINATION. 369 

influence of their one controlling sentiment. Hope, fear, 
joy, rage, jealousy, may alternately, or together, agitate 
the breasts of these unfortunate beings. Or raving mania 
even may occasionally supervene, leading, in despair of 
obtaining the beloved object, to suicide, or homicide, and 
sometimes to both. 

This form of monomania, however, is not always thus 
apparent, but strives to conceal itself through a deceptive 
guise, and then it becomes even the more dangerous and 
fatal in its consequences. Here its subjects grow sad, 
melancholy, silent ; lose their appetite and complexion, 
emaciate, fall into a sort of hectic, ending perhaps in death. 
The following familiar lines of Shakspeare well depict this 
secret and wasting form of erotic melancholy : 

" She never told her love, 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek : she pin'd in thought ; 
And, with a green and yellow melancholy, 
She sat like patience on a monument, 
Smiling at grief." 

Concealed erotic melancholy is not rare in those of de- 
licate, susceptive and romantic natures, and whose education 
has been effeminate and voluptuous, and in such will some- 
times prove fatal, either directly, or, what is more common, 
by exciting into action some other disease, as consumption, 
to which there had existed a prior disposition.* 

* Esquirol, in his treatise on Insanity has described this love- 
16* 



370 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

Dr. Zimmermann tells us that love properly belongs to 
the melancholy passions, and says it "acts suddenly and 
with violence, because of all passions it is the most im- 
patient, and the least susceptible of control ; sometimes, 
however, it is more slow in its progress, and, like intense 
grief, gradually undermines the constitution. The more 
general effects of this tender passion are a tremulous pulse, 
deep sighs, an alternate glow and paleness of the cheeks, 
dejection, loss of appetite, a faltering speech, cold sweats, 
and watchfulness, which gradually terminate in consump- 
tion, or perhaps occasion insanity."* 

The subjects of this morbidly refined and romantic 
imagination — to resume my principal topic — are generally 
characterized by strong and excitable feelings, but which 
are, for the most part, more ready to respond to ideal than 
real influences. Truth, in its naked guise, unpurified from 
the feculencies of the world, is too homely and offensive for 
such spiritualized beings. The squalid and unromantic 
beggar, perishing of cold or hunger in his wretched hovel, 
is an object quite too gross and disgusting to harmonize 
with their fastidious sensibilities. It is elegant, refined, 
and sentimental misery only, that can elicit their artificial 
sympathies. Their love, too — a passion to which, as I have 
before intimated, they arc so exceedingly susceptible — dis- 
covers the same exquisite refinement, and is therefore most 

madness, under the name of erotomania, and to his account of it, I have 
to acknowledge myself not a little indebted. 
* On Experience in Physic, 



IMAGINATION. 371 

apt to fix itself on some ideal model of beauty and ex- 
cellence. Or should their affections become linked to a 
carnal nature, such attachment will most commonly proceed 
from the false coloring and bright associations with which 
the imagination clothes it. Hence the well-known fickle- 
ness and caprice of such persons, and their disappointment 
with all veritable objects on familiarity, since all must fall 
short of their high- wrought fictitious standards. Many a 
poet, through his whole life, has remained constant in his 
devotion to some peerless idol of his own beautiful imagina- 
tion. How, indeed, can it be expected that one accustomed 
to dwell on the pure and transcendental creations of a de- 
licate and sublimated fancy, can contemplate with pleasure, 
or, I may even say without disgust, the coarseness and 
imperfection which so necessarily appertain to our earth- 
born nature ? 

The feelings, unduly excited, as they always are, by 
the wild dreams of the imagination, react with a morbid 
influence on the various functions of the body, and if 
the habits are at the same time sedentary and recluse, a 
train of moral and physical infirmities, generalized under 
the name of nervous temperament, will, in all likelihood, 
be the result. The subjects of this unhappy temperament, 
are commonly irresolute, capricious, and unnaturally sen- 
sitive in their feelings. Their passions, whether pleasura- 
ble or painful, are awakened with the greatest facility, 
and the most trifling causes will often elate them with 
hope, or sink them in despondency. A deep enthusiasm 
generally marks their character, and they not unfrequently 



372 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

display a high order of talent, and a nice and discrimina- 
ting taste, yet mingled with all those uncomfortable eccen- 
tricities which are so apt to accompany superior endow- 
ments. The poet, the painter, the musician — for their 
pursuits have all a kindred nature, and all work on the 
feelings and imagination — are more especially the subjects 
of this peculiar temperament. The nervous sensibility of 
poets has been proverbial even from the remotest time, 
and it is therefore that they have been styled, genus ir- 
ritabile vatum. " The occupations of a poet," says Dr. 
Currie in his life of Eobert Burns, " are not calculated 
to strengthen the governing powers of the mind, or to 
weaken that sensibility which requires perpetual control, 
since it gives birth to the vehemence of passion, as well as 
to the higher powers of imagination. Unfortunately the 
favorite occupations of genius are calculated to increase 
all its peculiarities, to nourish that lofty pride which dis- 
dains the littleness of prudence and the restrictions of 
order ; and by indulgence to increase that sensibility, which, 
in the present form of our existence, is scarcely compatible 
with peace or happiness, even when accompanied with the 
choicest gifts of fortune." 

The physical functions in this temperament are almost 
always weak, and pass very readily into disordered states. 
Its subjects are particularly liable to indigestion, and to 
sympathetic disturbances in the nervous, circulating, and 
respiratory systems. Thus, under sudden excitements, 
palpitations, flushings of the face, tremors, embarrassment 
in the respiration, with difficulty of speaking, are apt to oc- 



IMAGINATION. 373 

cur, and even syncope or fainting will sometimes take 
place. The body, moreover, is generally spare and feeble, 
frequently with an inclination forwards ; the face is pale 
and sickly, though, under excitement, readily assuming a 
hectic glow, and its expression is usually of a pensive 
character. 

The most melancholy nervous affections, as epilepsy, 
for example, have sometimes been brought on through the 
workings of an unnaturally exalted and ungoverned im- 
agination. And, in turn, the most enravishing conceits 
of fancy have at times been experienced while laboring 
under such disorders. It is in fits of epilepsy, and ecsta- 
tic trances, that religious enthusiasts have had their celes- 
tial visions, which their distempered minds have often 
converted into realities. The visits of the angel Gabriel to 
Mahomet, and the journey of this prophet through the seven 
heavens, under the guidance of the same angel, might not 
unlikely have taken place in some of the epileptic parox- 
ysms, to which he is well. known to have been subject, 

The imagination, then, exercising so decided an influ- 
ence on our moral feelings and conduct, and by a requisite 
consequence, on our health and happiness, we perceive how 
important it is that this faculty be wisely disciplined, or 
regulated according to the standard of nature, — that it be 
maintained in strict obedience to the judgment and will, 
and those delusive fancies in which the human mind is 
so prone to indulge, be carefully suppressed: since not 
only do they withdraw us from the rational ends and prac- 
tical duties of life — thereby rendering us less useful both 



374 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

to ourselves and to society — but tend also to break down 
the physical energies, and prepare the constitution for the 
ingress of disease, and for untimely dissolution. The mind, 
as well as the body, let it be remembered, may be feasted 
too voluptuously. The delights of a fantastic paradise 
have little harmony with our present nature. The spirit, 

— " whilst this muddy vesture of decay 

Doth grossly close it in," 

must forego the raptures of supernal visions, and accommo- 
date itself to its material relations — to the circumstances 
and necessities of its earthly dwelling-house. 

We unfortunately meet with some writers, who, being 
themselves the subjects of this fanciful temperament, would 
persuade us to seek enjoyment in the cultivation of morbid 
sensibilities, to the exclusion of the more wholesome reali- 
ties of life. Thus, says that popular and exquisitely senti- 
mental author, Zimmermann, ' : To suffer with so much 
softness and tranquillity ; to indulge in tender sorrow with- 
out knowing why, and still to prefer retirement ; to love 
the lonely margin of a limpid lake ; to wauder alone upon 
broken rocks, in deep caverns, in dreary forests; to feel 
no pleasure but in the sublime and beautiful of nature, 
in those beauties which the world despise; to desire the 
company of only one other being to whom we may com- 
municate the sensations of the soul, who would participate 
in all our pleasures, and forget every thing else in the 
universe ; this is a condition for which every young man 



IMAGINATION. 375 

ought to wish, who wishes to fly from the merciless ap- 
proaches of a cold, contentless old age." * 

Among the best securities against this prejudicial 
ascendency of the fancy, and those uncomfortable nervous 
infirmities which so generally attend it, may be advised a 
life of active and regular employment, directed to some 
interesting object. It would seem, indeed, necessary to 
the health and contentment of the human mind, at least 
in its cultivated state, that it should be constantly actu- 
ated by some prominent and engaging motive, — by the 
feeling that existence has a determinate purpose. The 
subjection, also, of the impulses of the imagination to a 
wise restraint; and the strengthening of the judgment 
and powers of volition by the prosecution of the exact or 
demonstrative sciences, such as have truth for their great 
and ultimate aim ; and, in addition, all those means which 
tend to sustain and elevate the bodily health, and thus to 
impart vigor to the nervous system, — as pure air, muscular 
exercise, cold bathing, and temperance in its widest accep- 
tation. 

Finally, to guard ourselves from the aforenamed moral 
infirmities, and their concomitant physical ills, we should 
cultivate a contented spirit, confining our wishes and ex- 
pectations within the limits of reason ; and especially striv- 
ing against the morbid growth of ambition, which, when 
from the temperament, or other circumstances of the indi- 
vidual, it does not impel to active efforts for its gratifica- 

* On Solitude. 



376 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

tion, will cause the mind to be ever wandering amid vision- 
ary scenes of wealth and honor, and thus wholly disqualify 
it for its appointed sphere of action and enjoyments. 
Avoiding all eccentricities — keeping along in the beaten 
track of existence — pursuing with regularity, and a suita- 
ble degree of interest, the duties which belong to our sev- 
eral stations, — such is the course which would, probably, 
on the whole, be most conformable to physical and moral 
health, and enjoyment. The burs and briers of life are 
oftenest encountered when we wander from its trodden 
paths. 



CHAP. XXIX. 

GENERAL CONCLUSION. THE INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS A FAR 

LESS FREQUENT OCCASION OF DISEASE THAN THE PASSIONS. 

EXAMPLES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LNFLUENCE EXERCISED BY 

THE MIND UPON THE BODILY FUNCTIONS. CASE OF COL. 

TOWNSHEND, WHO COULD DIE AND COME TO LIFE AGAIN 
AT PLEASURE. OUR PHYSICAL INTEREST DEMANDS A VIR- 
TUOUS REGULATION OF THE MORAL FEELINGS. SELF-RE- 
LIANCE AND STRONG VOLITION ESSENTIAL TO THE PERFEC- 
TION OF HEALTH AND CHARACTER. MORAL EDUCATION OF 

CHILDREN SHOULD BE EARLY COMMENCED. DUTIES OF PA- 
RENTS. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 

I have maintained in the first part of this volume, that 
the exercise of the intellectual functions, abstractly consi- 
dered, does not tend, on a general principle, to favor disease, 
or shorten life. Yet exceptions arise where simple intellec- 
tual labors are urged to an injurious degree. In the reports 
of lunatic asylums we almost always find some of the cases 
ascribed to excess of study. I am convinced, however, that 
a larger share, both of mental and bodily ills, than rigorous 
truth will warrant, is referred to immoderate exertion of the 
intellect ; the reasons of which error have been previously 



378 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

explained. Thus, our intellectual efforts are, at the present 
day, almost always associated with those habits of life, as un- 
due confinement, insufficient and irregular sleep, and other 
like incidental circumstances, which are well known to be 
detrimental to health. And furthermore, as knowledge is 
seldom pursued for its own sake, but for some ulterior ad- 
vantage, either of fame, or pecuniary profit, mental labors 
are rarely unaccompanied with the workings, even the strong 
and painful workings of passion. Intellectual men, it must 
be admitted, are, either by nature or the force of circum- 
stances, particularly prone to ambition, and are consequently 
exposed to those various evils and sufferings, already men- 
tioned, which attend upon this passion when it becomes a 
ruling one in the human breast. If moderate and obedient 
to reason, and its aims guided by wisdom, it may, as I have 
previously said, serve as an incentive to call into useful and 
wholesome exertion the different powers of our nature ; but 
when inordinate, as it is so apt to become, then will feelings 
of the most painful and destructive character unavoidably 
grow out of it. 

Our own literary and scientific men, those of the learn- 
ed professions, for example, will furnish ample illustration of 
the truth of the preceding remarks. How restless, often, 
and anxious, are their struggles in pursuit of a little ephe- 
meral notoriety ! To what various expedients do we not 
see them resorting for the sake even of that brief and equi- 
vocal fame derived through the columns of the periodical 
press? But, then, as the flattery of success may not always 
reward their endeavors ; as they may meet the shafts of ccn- 



CONCLUSION. 379 

sure where they looked for the blandishments of praise, fre- 
quently must the painful and noxious passions, born of defeat- 
ed hope and wounded pride, such as anger, hate, jealousy, 
grief, humiliation, take possession of the soul, marring all 
life's moral peace, and calling forth a host of physical ills, 
as indigestions, nervous disorders, palpitations, and all sorts 
of irregularities of the heart's action, rendering existence 
burdenous, and shortening its term. 

The intellectual exertions themselves, then, we ration- 
ally conclude, are less a source of evil than the incidental 
circumstances so commonly united with them ; and that 
those mental labors are always the most harmless which 
have the least tendency to call forth deep and morbid 
feeling. 

It is, however, to the moral feelings that we are to look 
for a strongly marked — an undeniable influence on the 
bodily functions ; for this reason have we appropriated to 
their consideration so much the larger share of the present 
volume. 

The mind is never agitated by any strong affection with- 
out a sensible change immediately ensuing in some one or 
more of the vital phenomena; and which, according to its 
nature, or the circumstances under which it occurs, may be 
either morbid or sanative in its effects, in the same manner 
as in the action of strictly physical agents — the various 
medicaments for example. Mental emotions, when curative, 
operate mostly, it is to be presumed, on the principle gener- 
ally admitted in medical science called revulsion ; that is, 
by calling forth new and ascendant actions in the animal 



380 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

economy, they repress or destroy the distempered ones al- 
ready existing. It is no more strange, then, that the pas- 
sions should, through their influence on our physical organi- 
zation, be capable of engendering or subduing morbid 
phenomena, than that agents essentially material in their 
nature should possess such power. We have instances on 
record, where, by the simple effort of the will the heart's 
action could be directly arrested, and restored again by the 
same power of volition ; in other words, where the indivi- 
dual could, to all appearance, die, and revive again at his 
pleasure. One of the most remarkable and best authenti- 
cated examples of this direct power of the mind over the 
vital functions, is that of the Hon. Colonel Townshend, 
related by Dr. G-eorge Cheyne, which, as it may not be fami- 
liar to the general reader, I will venture to cite in the pre- 
sent connection. 

Colonel Townshend, being affected with a nephritic com- 
plaint, was attended by Dr. Cheyne and Dr. Baynard. One 
morning he sent early for his physicians to visit him, who 
waited upon him with Mr. Skrine, his apothecary. " We 
found," says Dr. Cheyne, " his senses clear, and his mind 
calm ; his nurse and several servants were about him. He 
had made his will and settled his affairs. He told us he 
had sent for us to give him some account of an odd sensa- 
tion he had for some time observed and felt in himself: 
which was, that composing himself, he could die or expire 
when he pleased, and yet by an effort, or somehow, he could 
come to life again ; which it seems he had sometimes tried 
before he had sent for us. Wo heard this with surprise, 



CONCLUSION. 381 

but as it was not to be accounted for from now common 
principles, we could hardly believe the fact as he related it, 
much less give any account of it, unless he should please to 
make the experiment before us, which we were unwilling he 
should do, lest in his weak condition he might carry it too 
far. He continued to talk very distinctly and sensibly 
above a quarter of an hour about this (to him) surprising 
sensation, and insisted so much on our seeing the trial made 
that we were at last forced to comply. We all three felt his 
pulse first ; it was distinct, though small and thready ; and 
his heart had its usual beating. He composed himself on 
his back, and lay in a still posture some time ; while I held 
his right hand, Dr. Baynard laid his hand on his heart, 
and Mr. Skrine held a clean looking-glass to his mouth, 
I found his pulse sink gradually, till at last I could not 
feel any, by the most exact and nice touch ; Dr. Baynard 
could not feel the least motion in his heart, nor Mr. Skrine 
the least soil of breath on the bright mirror he held to 
his mouth ; then each of us by turns examined his arm, 
heart, and breath, but could not, by the nicest scrutiny, 
discover the least symptom of life in him. We reasoned 
a long time about this odd appearance, as well as we could, 
and all. of us, judging it inexplicable and unaccountable, 
and finding he still continued in that condition, we began 
to conclude that he had indeed carried the experiment too 
far, and at last were satisfied he was actually dead, and 
were just ready to leave him. This continued about half 
an hour, by nine o'clock in the morning, in autumn. As 
we were going away, we observed some motion about the 



382 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

body, and upon examination, found his pulse and the mo- 
tion of his heart gradually returning : he began to breathe 
gently and speak softly : we were all astonished to the last 
degree at this unexpected change, and after some further 
conversation with him, and among ourselves, went away 
fully satisfied as to all the particulars of this fact, but con- 
founded and puzzled, and not able to form any rational 
scheme that might account for it. He afterwards called 
for his attorney, added a codicil to his will, settled legacies 
on his servants, received the sacrament, and calmly and 
composedly expired about five or six o'clock that evening." * 
Hundreds of instances might be adduced to prove the 
force of the imagination, or, more properly, of the moral 
feelings which it awakens, in altering and controlling phys- 
ical actions. Such influence, it seems to me, was strikingly 
illustrated by the novel surgical operation which, some 
years since, excited so strong, though transient an interest, 
for the cure of stammering. The different operations that 
were tried in this country, for the removal of such imperfec- 
tion, were acupuncturation, or the passage of several slender 
needles transversely through the tongue ; the excision of 
a portion of the uvula, and also of the tonsils ; the division 
of the fracnum of the tongue ; and, lastly, and the one most 
trusted to, the separation of the genio-hyo-glossus muscle 
at its origin from the lower jaw. I repeatedly witnessed 
the trial of each of these operations, and the sudden and 
surprising relief which usually followed. Stammerers of 

* English Malady, p. 307 et soq. London : 1733. 



CONCLUSION. 383 

the worst class, so soon as the operation was finished, would 
frequently talk and read with scarcely any, and, in some 
instances, not the slightest hesitation or embarrassment. 
In truth, the success of the experiment was, as I thought, 
most remarkable where the impediment was the greatest. 
Unfortunately, however, for the credit of experimental sur- 
gery, although some submitted to each of the operations, 
and even to their repetition, the benefit resulting was 
merely temporary, and in no instance that came within 
my knowledge, was there a decided and lasting cure. May 
we not, now, ascribe the remarkable effects of these bloody 
experiments chiefly, if not entirely, to the strong influence 
which they exercised upon the mental feelings ? 

Dr. Paris in his Pharmacologia has recorded an instance 
related to him by Mr. Coleridge, strongly illustrative of 
the physical effects of the imagination. When the peculiar 
action of the exhilarating gas (protoxide of nitrogen, or 
nitrous oxide) upon the nervous system was first discovered, 
it was inferred by Dr. Beddoes that it must necessarily be 
a specific for palsy, and a patient was therefore selected for 
the trial, and the management of it intrusted to Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy. " Previous to the administration of the gas, 
he inserted a small pocket thermometer under the tongue 
of the patient, as he was accustomed to do on such oc- 
casions, to ascertain the degree of animal temperature, 
with a view to future comparison. The paralytic man, 
wholly ignorant of the nature of the process to which he 
was to submit, but deeply impressed, from the representa- 
tion of Dr. Beddoes, with the certainty of its success, no 



384 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

sooner felt the thermometer under his tongue than he con- 
cluded the talisman was in full operation, and in a burst of 
enthusiasm declared that he already experienced the effect 
of its benign influence throughout his whole body. The 
opportunity was too tempting to be lost ; Davy cast an in- 
intelligent glance at Coleridge, and desired his patient to 
renew his visit on the following day, when the same cere- 
mony was performed, and repeated every succeeding day for 
a fortnight, the patient gradually improving during that 
period, when he was dismissed as cured, no other applica- 
tion having been used." 

I have known persons from breathing atmospheric air, 
under the impression that it was nitrous oxide, to experience 
the same effects as though they had actually inhaled the 
latter. Let one direct his attention strongly and exclu- 
sively to a particular part of the body, and an uncomforta- 
ble sensation will not rarely be felt in that part. It is 
through the power of his fancy that the hypochondriac 
suffers such various and changeful morbid sensations in 
different portions of his frame. Chills and shuddering will 
many times begin to be experienced on the bare thoughts of 
an ague-fit through which one has recently passed. The 
phenomena of mesmerism, the subjects of which have gen- 
erally feeble wills, and great nervous susceptibility, are 
doubtless often produced, like hysteria and other kindred 
nervous disorders, through the influence of the imagina- 
tion. 

Having regard but to the laws of our present organiza- 
tion, it seems to me that no truth can be more plain than 



CONCLUSION. 385 

that pure and well-regulated moral affections are essential 
to the greatest good of the whole animal economy, — that 
the turbulent and evil passions must necessarily corrupt the 
sources of our physical, moral, and intellectual health, and 
thus be followed by heavy penalties to the general constitu- 
tion. Even our physical interest, separate from any other 
motive, demands the cultivation of the good, and the re- 
straint of the evil passions of our nature. 

" He," says an old medical writer, " who seriously re- 
solves to preserve his health, must previously learn to con- 
quer his passions, and keep them in absolute subjection to 
reason ; for, let a man be ever so temperate in his diet, and 
regular in his exercise, yet still some unhappy passions, if 
indulged to excess, will prevail over all his regularity, and 
prevent the good effects of his temperance. It is necessary, 
therefore, that he should be upon his guard against an in- 
fluence so destructive."* 

Nor did this close connection between a virtuous regula- 
tion of the moral feelings and the health of the body, 
escape the observation of Doctor Franklin's sagacious in- 
tellect. " Virtue," says this sententious writer, " is the 
best preservative of health, as it prescribes temperance, and 
such a regulation of our passions as is most conducive to 
the well-being of the animal economy ; so that it is, at the 
same time, the only true happiness of the mind, and the 
best means of preserving the health of the body." 

* The History of Health, and the Art of Preserving it. By James 
Mackenzie, M. D., &c. 

17 



386 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

The ancient sages who wrote upon the philosophy of 
health, dwelt especially on the importance of a prudent gov- 
ernment of the affections. Galen urged that the mind 
should be early trained up in virtuous habits, particularly 
in modesty and obedience, as the most summary method of 
insuring the health of the body in future life. 

It has been said, and truly said, that a soul which main- 
tains a certain empire over the body it animates, may also 
be of infinite use in preserving life and health. It is self- 
reliance, now, united with a strong will, that gives this do- 
minion to the soul, and thereby contributes a wholesome 
influence to all the functions of our being. Were it required 
of me to determine the mental qualities which should be 
particularly fostered and strengthened, in reference to 
health, happiness, and the force and perfection of human 
character, I should name self-reliance and volition ; for if 
these are feeble, weakness and effeminacy, moral and physi- 
cal, are the almost unavoidable consequences. But are they, 
let me ask, sufficiently encouraged and enforced in the pre- 
sent times ? Is it not according to the spirit of the age to 
resign, in too great a measure, our own self-dependence, and 
to blend and confound ourselves with the collective masses? 
Have we a proper sense of our individuality ? Do we not 
act too much in the aggregate — live too much under the 
direction of general ideas? It certainly appears to me 
that in this age we do not rely enough on our particular 
judgment and energies. We fear to stand on our own in- 
dependent footing, as units, — self-acting, self-thinking units. 
We must have the support of authorities, of public scnti- 



CONCLUSION. 387 

meut; we must ascertain, not whether our thoughts and 
our acts are right or wrong, but whether they square with 
the opinions and conduct of the world. Foregoing our 
own individuality, we become dependent and subordinate 
parts of the aggregative body. "Amidst the progress of 
public liberty," as an eminent French writer has observed, 
" many seem to have lost the proud and invigorating senti- 
ment of their own personal liberty." Such may have, and 
doubtless has had some advantages, yet it is not without its 
evils, opposed, as it must be, to the concentration of indivi- 
dual power — individual endeavors. Has any thing truly 
great, supremely excellent, ever been accomplished in the 
world, — has any really important discovery ever been made 
in the arts and sciences, — any master-works in literature 
ever been produced, unless mainly as the offspring of single 
minds ? Newton discovered the laws of gravitation — wrote 
his Principia, not as one of a collective assembly, but by 
the force of his own unaided intellect. Bacon called in the 
assistance of no other mind in the composition of his No- 
vum Organ on. Harvey, of himself--not as one of a joint 
company, or convocation, or committee of a convocation — 
discovered the circulation of the blood. The unrivalled 
productions of Shakspeare were the outpourings of his 
own unhelped genius. And Franklin alone first drew the 
lightnings of heaven down to earth. And so do I believe 
that every thing of magnitude, every discovery that is des- 
tined to elevate man's nature, and man's condition, is to 
proceed from the strength of individual genius — individual 
intellect. 



388 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

We should never learn to walk securely if we always 
leaned on others ; we should never reach the fulness of our 
powers while we trusted to foreign aidance ; and little could 
we ever bring to pass, if afraid to think and act for our- 
selves. 

Let me here for a moment urge the importance of be- 
ginning early (it can scarce be commenced too early) the 
moral education of children. Every day that this is ne- 
glected will the baneful feelings of their nature be acquir- 
ing additional force and obstinacy. It is in their very 
germ, in the weakness of their birth, that these are to be 
successfully combated. We are, as previously alleged, the 
subjects of moral feeling, and therefore of moral discipline, 
at an age by far earlier that is usually imagined. That 
many children suffer in their health, and oftentimes to no 
slight extent, under the repeated and severe operation of 
passions which parents have neglected to reprove, is a truth 
too plain for contradiction. And not only have they to un- 
dergo present suffering from such unpardonable remissness, 
but not unfrequently does it become the cause of an afflic- 
tive train of infirmities, both of mind and body, in their 
future years ; and experience, it may be of the most painful 
nature, must teach them to bring under control feelings 
which should have been repressed in the impotence of 
their origin. " We frequently," says Mr. Locke, " see 
parents, by humoring them when little, corrupt the princi- 
ples of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to 
taste the bitter waters when they themselves have poisoned 
the fountain."* 

" Ou Education. 



CON CLUSION. 389 

No duties or obligations have been more often or elo- 
quently enforced both by the moralist and divine, than those 
of the child to the parent ; and I would not say aught that 
might serve in any degree to weaken their deep and binding 
character. Still, it appears to me, that those due from the 
parent to the child are really of a paramount nature, and 
that more serious consequences will be hazarded by their 
omission. Our parents bestow, or impose existence upon 
us, and are therefore bound, in the most solemn duty, to 
spare no sacrifice, to omit no efforts, which may contribute 
to render that existence a blessing. If, through their culpa- 
ble neglect and mismanagement, they entail upon us a host 
of mental and bodily ills, we owe them little gratitude for 
the life with which they have burdened us. 

When we consider the carelessness and misjudgment so 
often exhibited in the early training of the young — how 
many children are literally educated by example, if not by 
precept, to falsehood, hypocrisy, pusillanimity, and intem- 
perance in its broadest sense ; in short, how many moral 
and physical vices are allowed to ingraft themselves in the 
constitution even in the dawn of its development, we are led 
almost to wonder that human nature does not grow up even 
more corrupt than we actually find it. 

In concluding the present volume I would again urge 
the high importance, to the whole living economy, at all 
periods of our existence, of a prudent government of the 
moral constitution. Man, unrestrained by discipline, or 
abandoned to the turbulence of unbridled passion, is 
pitiable and degraded indeed. The fountains of his health 



390 MENTAL HYGIENE. 

and enjoyment are corrupted, and all that is comely and 
elevated in his nature marred and debased. His whole life, 
in short, becomes but a succession of painful mental and 
physical strugglings and commotions, — a torment equally 
to himself and all around him. 

" Of all God's workes, which doe this worlde adorne, 
There is no one more faire and excellent, 
Than is man's body both for powre and forme, 
Whiles it is kept in sober government ; 
But none than it more fowle and indecent, 
Distempred though misrule and passions bace." 

But although the passions appointed to us, are so prolific 
of evil — so fruitful a source of disease, sorrow, and igno- 
miny — yet fortunately they are the subjects of education, 
and, as when uncontrolled they become the bane and re- 
proach of our nature, under a wise restraint and watchful 
culture they may be rendered our richest blessing and 
fairest ornament. 



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